Excess Baggage, the new Australian counterpart to weight-loss reality show The Biggest Loser, claims to take the higher road by not relying on humiliation and shaming of contestants.
It focuses on overall health vs. mere weight loss, utilizing a psychologist to address mental roadblocks which obstruct a healthy lifestyle, and rallying people off treadmills and into nature.
And for added motivation (read: viewer ratings), each contestant is surprised in the first episode by being paired with a celebrity (i.e.: Keven Federline, Britney Spears’ ex-husband, who subsequently was rushed to hospital during filming as a result of signs of cardiac arrest).
Touted as the “feel-good series of the year,” the creators emphasize health vs. weight loss and use the clever marketing tactic of viewers casting their votes on which contestant will become the “healthiest.”
So, semantically, geographically, and methodologically it’s slightly different than The Biggest Loser, but that’s where the differences end.
I’m certainly not going to argue that obesity isn’t a real health issue and doesn’t need to be addressed, but as soon as obesity is dramatized and sensationalized, we have problems.
I’m also not casting judgment on the contestants. They are courageous to leave the comfort of their daily lives and try to make changes to improve their overall health. It seems many of them have positive motivations to change, such as wanting to live longer so they can care for their children.
Unfortunately, media corporations are banking off real people’s suffering – turning personal lifestyle habits, emotional pain, shame and guilt, into a spectacle for entertainment:
http://youtu.be/a7Gbg0R_zzE
We certainly can’t take the creator’s quotes about “health promotion” at face value when large amounts of money are involved. Indeed, in a bit of a panic, newspaper The Australian has already reported that ratings dropped dramatically from 880,000 to 625,000 between the first and second episodes.
In the second episode, contestants were confronted with their stats (weight, waistline measurements, BMI) showing obvious signs of embarrassment (not unlike The Biggest Loser), which undoubtedly does nothing to increase self-esteem, and could potentially lead contestants and viewers to an increased obsession with obtaining “ideal” numbers. Health isn’t tied up in numbers.
So, thank you Excess Baggage, for your sincere efforts to one-up The Biggest Loser in the name of health, but I’m not buying it.
— Joy
Obesity isn’t a real health issue. Pwople not being as healthy as they should be is a health issue, regardless of size. I’m surprised Joy, I would think working on this site would help you to realize that obesity is just a way of pigeonholing people who don’t meet society’s standards for looks. Weight is a poor barometer of health. Instead of giving validation to those who seek to feel justified in otracizing fat people, or stereotyping them as unhealthy, you should be saying poor health is an issue for everyone. Being thin doesn’t make you invincible, and being fat doesn’t mean you’ll be diseased. It’s this kind of black & white thinking that leads to shows like these.
I suggest you read this Joy:
http://www.bigfatfacts.com
It’s such a shame that a site aiming to abolish lookism, would follow the pop culture notion that being fat is wrong.
Firstly, I agree that weight is not a measure of health and certainly I’m an avid supporter of the Health at Every Size (HAES) movement. My statement, “Health isn’t tied up in numbers” addresses this sentiment exactly. In this article, my main argument is that when the media profits on the dramatization of weight loss under the sneaky guise of “health promotion”, there is no advancement toward HAES. I’m not arguing for a particular body size, shape, or weight, but bringing attention to the fact that Excess Baggage uses the same tactics as The Biggest Loser (shaming, public embarrassment, and sensationalism) which keeps a hyper-focus on weight loss rather than the adoption of healthy lifestyle practices, regardless of size.