Whilst all of the contestants needed to lose weight, I am concerned with the premise of this show. It has many good qualities: exercise and a balanced diet is very important. However, I note the following:
"Mr. Cahill knew he could not maintain his finale weight of 191 pounds. He was so mentally and physically exhausted he barely moved for two weeks after his publicity tour ended."
This cannot be healthy. My concern is that the weight gain has occurred over the person's lifetime, yet they can lose up to 30 pounds in a week. The New York Post, which I realise is not a terribly reliable source, reports that the show has frequent injuries and many contestants have had serious side effects. One contestant started losing her hair. Another showed possible signs of kidney failure. Yet another has president issues with short-term memory loss.
When I first saw this show advertised for the Australian version I thought it looked amazing, even inspirational. Then I saw the weigh-ins and the show's mechanism used to judge contestants. It was for week-to-week weight loss. If you gained even a small amount of weight, there was a real danger of being evicted from the show.
It's already known that yo-yo diets are incredibly dangerous. So I would like to know what the doctors on the show were doing - they must be aware that what they are doing is not medically recommended. They have a moral and ethical duty to ensure their charged live a healthy lifestyle, not an extreme one that the contestant goes through. I also wonder if the contestants are give enough information to consent to the regime the show puts them under. I think it's telling (and frankly, I don't think it should protect a doctor!) that the contestants must sign the following waiver:
"No warranty, representation or guarantee has been made as to the qualifications or credentials of the medical professionals who examine me or perform any procedures on me in connection with my participation in the series, or their ability to diagnose medical conditions that may affect my fitness to participate in the series".
Are these really doctors? If they are, then this should in way reduce their liability for poor medical advice, nor the show's.
My final concern is a bit more out of left field. This show is a data driven show. They record their calorific intake, blood pressure, time and means excercised, weight loss, psychological studies are taken... You name it, they do it. And it's done under a very controlled environment.
The show is basically a medical study, albeit not one with a control group or published in a scientific journal, or ine that publishes their full results. Yet a study it is: whilst the methodology and transparency are flawed, their are plenty of studies that exhibit the same characteristics. The difference is that in a normal medical study at a university the study would need to be approved by an ethics committee and follow certain parameters. The Biggest Loser* does not. Which means that I seriously wonder what level of liability - both personal and corporate - the producers of this show are letting themselves in for. They may have legal disclaimers, but if even one contestant can prove corrosion or a lack of informed consent as to what they were agreeing to, then those waivers would be worthless.
This show, frankly, is a huge concern.