in brief: biggest loser USA under fire for winner’s dramatic weight loss
Producers of US weight loss competition television program, The Biggest Loser are under scrutiny for the 2014 season winner’s dramatic 70kg weight loss.
Rachel Frederickson, pictured after shedding 60% of her body mass, started what was anticipated to be the journey to a healthy lifestyle at 117kg.
But at the final weigh in, the audience and trainers alike were shocked by what has been described by social media users as her new ‘skeletal’ frame.
At 163cm, her new weight of 47kg is – based on the Body Mass Index (BMI) scale, which has divided the medical community as to its accuracy in demarcating healthy bodies – considered not to be in the healthy range.
Criticism has been perhaps unfairly directed at Frederickson herself, as the weight loss demonstrates the intense pressures contestants face during their time on the show.
Fit and Feminist blogger Caitlin has pointed out it’s encouraging to see that audiences were shocked by the Frederickson’s outcome of being put through the Biggest Loser machine.
‘She played the game and she played it hard, and in doing so, she laid bare the show’s messed-up, disordered premises for all the world to see,’ she wrote.
Frederickson’s record-breaking weight loss for the show is not the only controversy the programme has encountered, with former contestants admitting to its role in the development of eating disorders.
As far as I know she had three months on her own to keep losing weight before the finale so the show and it’s producers are not at fault for how much she CHOSE to lose to win the game.
A lot of contestants lose as much as possible to win and then you see them months after and they’ve gained weight.
So while she does look too thin, and for me too thin is when your bones are more prominent than anything else, the only person to blame is her.
I just don’t understand how anyone can think being that thin is beautiful. If you’re sense of how things are or should be is so warped that a skeletal frame is beautiful then there is something seriously wrong.