THE BIGGEST LOSER - AUSTRALIA

The 2012 season of Australia’s “The Biggest Loser” series has just started airing on television. Like every other twenty-something media-influenced female, I find this show to be a bit of a guilty pleasure & I enjoy watching severely overweight people crying on the treadmill while I lounge around on weeknights with a microwaved meal in hand. I’m really bad at keeping up with continuing episodes & I usually only see the first handful then pick it up again 3/4 of the way through the series when everyone is un-recognizable. I do, however, always make time for the finale episode where we get to see all of the contestants together again. The comparison photos are amazing but are usually ruined by the contestants themselves who awkwardly pretend to punch / kick / shoo them away. Still, I enjoy being part of the couch-warriors of Australia who clap & cheer everyone for their newly toned bodies, while seccretly wishing I had spent all the hours I wasted watching the actual show doing exercise myself.

This year, I have a rather-large-bone to pick with the Biggest Loser. It’s not necessarily with the concept behind the show… Although losing weight that rapidly & intensely over a short period of time isn’t the most healthy option for your body, I think it benefits the contestants much more than if they hadn’t done it at all. My bone-picking is with the marketing behind this series, mainly the tagline they’re using to promote it:

“Learn to love yourself”

On a whole, this is a very motivating & uplifting phrase to share… but it’s definitely not the message this show is promoting. I personally think that learning to love yourself means accepting who you are & what you look like currently & feeling confident about what you’ve already got… Not learning to love yourself by undergoing a complete image overhaul as the first part of this process. Like I said earlier, I think the show itself is a great way to promote a somewhat healthier lifestyle & encourage people to make better choices… but to promote that the only way you can be at peace with yourself is to lose weight? Not cool. Being overweight or obese is definitely a health issue, but I don’t see any reason why someone should be made to feel like they can’t love their body the way it is if that’s what they’re comfortable with.

#mytwocents