What The Biggest Loser Viewers Didn't See About How Awful Contestants Were Actually Treated

Summary

The Biggest Loser's extreme workouts, restricted calorie diets, and shaming tactics have negative impacts on contestants' health.
Contestants were subjected to grueling workouts lasting up to 8 hours, ate only 1,000 calories/day, and were ridiculed by trainers.
The aggressive weight loss methods led to health issues, weight regain, and permanent metabolism damage in contestants.

The Biggest Loser first premiered on NBC in 2004. Despite that being twenty years ago, the ripple effects of the show on today's diet culture remain.The reality tv weight loss show was famous for how it took everything about diet and exercise to the extreme. It left the air in 2016, but was rebooted by USA in 2020 - with many of the same shaming tactics in place.

In 2004, the show was not deeply scrutinized. Magazines would have the winners of the show grace their covers, their extreme weight loss celebrated by the masses. However, now that two decades have past, it is worth examining just how painful that experience was for the contestants.

The Biggest Loser Work Outs Were Extremely Dangerous

The Biggest Loser's Jillian Michaels and Bob Harper promotional photo — The Biggest Loser's Jillian Michaels and Bob Harper photoshoot

To attain the extreme weight loss expected of them, The Biggest Loser contestants were subjected to grueling workouts. Once arriving at the ranch, contestants were given a medical exam and then forced to work out immediately after.

These workouts were a marathon, some lasting between 5–8 hours. Some of the contestants were sent to work out and diet from home, and they were allowed to work out for less time. However, that still meant exercising for 2-3 hours a day - which is still excessive.

According to New York Post, former contestant Kai Hibbard recalled, "My feet were bleeding through my shoes for the first three weeks.”

Ryan Benson, who won the show in 2005 and walked away with the $250,000 prize money, also recalled grueling exercise sessions.

“It hurt to do anything when you’d wake up in the morning.”

One contestant remembers her first workout on the show being four hours long and included a routine that only a world-class athlete would be able to keep up with. In that first workout, she did rowing, kettlebells, the stair-master, and even outside work lifting heavy tires. She was exercised to the point of collapsing, even saying, "I thought I was going to die."

One would think that in the newer iteration of the show, which premiered on NBC's sister network USA in 2020, such intense workouts would be reconsidered given our new attitude towards diet culture. However, that does not appear to be the case.

The new trainers Steve Cook and Erica Lugo still put their trainees bodies' through some grueling tasks. Similar to the NBC version of the show, contestants were forced to work out as soon as they arrive at The Biggest Loser, doing interval training that left them so sick they needed buckets to vomit.

What The Biggest Loser Contestants' Diet Looked Like

Traditionally, when training this much, one would be eating a high calorie diet. That was not the case for The Biggest Loser contestants. When the objective is to get as skinny as possible as fast as possible, that meant restricting calories in an extreme and unhealthy way.

The Biggest Loser contestants would usually only eat around 1,000 calories a day. The grocery list needed to be approved by the trainers. However, instead of foods rich in fiber and vitamins, they were eating "diet food."

Kai remembered, "my season had a lot of Franken-foods: I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter spray, Kraft fat-free cheese, Rockstar Energy Drinks, Jell-O.” Imagine having to sprint a mile after having an energy drink and Jell-O for lunch. For the contestants of The Biggest Loser, that was unfortunately very much the reality.

Hibbard admitted that before the final weigh in, her diet consisted of "only sugar-free Jell-O and asparagus," so she could be the smallest size possible.

The culture around food was so bad, according to NY Post, the contestants were even encouraged not to consume electrolyte drinks, even after doctors told them to, because they were told it might affect their weigh in.

A lot of The Biggest Loser contestants' food came from whoever the corporate sponsor for the show was, like Subway sandwiches.

Much has not changed in the 2020 version of the show either. In one episode, the new trainers Steve and Erica encouraged the contestants to bring their own mustard to social events as to avoid eating any ketchup. This kind of culture around condiments is dangerous, as it promotes disordered eating.

The Biggest Loser Contestants Were Ridiculed And Mocked By Trainers

If The Biggest Loser contestants' eating and exercise habits weren't aggressive enough, the contestants were also mercilessly mocked by their trainers. Kai recalled, "They would say things to contestants like, ‘You’re going die before your children grow up.’ ‘You’re going to die, just like your mother.’ and even, ‘We’ve picked out your fat-person coffin.’"

Jillian Micheals, who gained endless brand deals and notoriety from the show, famously reveled in the pain of the contestants. “It’s fun watching other people suffer like that,” she once said on the show.

In a particularly terrible workout in season three, contestants were placed in horse stalls and were told to race out of the stalls like livestock - carrying sacks filled with the amount of weight they had lost. Kai declined to participate in the humiliating sprint, choosing to walk rather than run out of the gate. "They edited it to look like I was lazy," she says.

"But I wasn’t participating because it was humiliating."

Why The Biggest Loser Contestants' Massive Weight Loss Were Dangerous And Not Likely To Remain

There is a reason this form of exercise isn't recommended for anyone - it can lead to serious and sometimes life-altering health problems. According to NY Post, Benson, who went from 330 pounds to 208 pounds became so malnourished that he was urinating blood - which is often a common sign of kidney damage.

Rachel Frederickson, who won The Biggest Loser in 2014, was 5-foot, 4-inches and by the end of the show weighed in at 105 pounds. Meaning she lost 155 pounds in mere months. Within a few months of the finale, she had gained back twenty pounds. She was working out four times a day, which, for the majority of people who are not professional athletes, is simply not sustainable.

There were also many injuries on the show itself, but they were never shown. In 2009, two contestants on the show were hospitalized, one being sent via airlift. Kai said that, "One contestant had a torn calf muscle and bursitis in her knees."

In 2016, the National Institutes of Health published a study that revealed that a majority of former Biggest Loser contestants had regained the weight they’d lost, and also permanently damaged their metabolism.

Kai admitted about her experience on The Biggest Loser, "I had no idea what to expect ... I just bought into the idea that to be healthy or happy I needed to be smaller. Instead, I became unhealthier, developed disordered eating, and hated my body more than I ever had. Not only did I very publicly display my disordered eating and exercise habits, I was quite literally celebrated for them.”

For a show that claims to be about bettering oneself and living a healthy lifestyle, it seems they have accomplished the opposite.