Thank you! You have beautifully articulated many of my issues with this terrible show, and the with the attitude surrounding it. It is a joke to say this show has anything to do with health, it is about shamelessly laughing at the fatties and about perpetuating the idea that we all must be beautifully thin to be happy and fulfilled.

Good on you Noelle,

Yes, The Biggest Loser is TV food porn at its best or worst. Did you know that one of its sponsors is Dominos Pizza? Astounding really. The levels of irony are, well, overwhelming.

What is it about people that we find entertainment in other people's shame - or what they wrongly perceive is shameful. We're all fat, skinny, tall, short, black, white, tan, etc. So why pick on fat people? Because it makes great TV.

We empathise with the contestants as they go through their horror diets and exercises. In fact we empathise more with people we've never met on TV rather than the overweight office manager we work with or who we share the morning bus to work with. Odd that.

Keep up the good fight!

generally it takes sick hearts to want to be entertained by sick shows. generally men have been portrayed by most shows as dopes and women as sex objects. The biggest loser I suspect (never watched it) is no better or worse than Neighbours or the rest of the crap dished forward on TV. Obviously like porn people must want it. I suspect just as many women watch this crap as men. Parents who allow their kids to grow up in TV world should be charged with child abuse.

PT Barnum looked after his freaks: It seems that some of the clowns running the show might be endangering the lives of the participants. Biggest Loser might have a little more going for it were it to follow the example of Morgan Spurlock by monitoring the health of the participants and to stress the substantial benefits that they stand to gain from attaining a healthy weight range and exercising. Putting obese people through extreme exercise and dieting regimes, then putting the interim winners in a room full of fattening treats seems puerile as entertainment. The tragedy of the obese is the prospect of death and morbidity. Obesity is one of the great problems faced by our modern civilisation.

Reality shows are always manipulative and exploitative.
TBL is no exception but the fact they they engineer tears EVERY SINGLE EPISODE is really annoying.
I guess it is made worse by the fact that they masquerade as trying to help these people.
However, it can sometimes make for interesting viewing.

i prefer my women cuddly, curvy, not obese but soft & womanly as do 3/4s of the other men i have discussed it with.

Hang on.

1. Remember participants VOLUNTEER for this show. It's been on TV long enough for applicants to know exactly what they're applying for. To my knowledge, the media hasn't ever reported a disgruntled participant.

2. Regardless of how tough it is and how manipulated the editing and staging might be for TV ratings, it is difficult to deny that *inspirational* transformations occur on this show.

3. Even if participants put weight back on after the show, they get the feeling of being leaner and fiitter, for some the first time in decades, providing added motivation for the journey.

4. Weight gain is not simply about over eating and lack of exercise. These behaviours are symptoms of mental weakness, poor routine and habits, low self-esteem, and self sabotaging behaviour. This training is tough for the same reason military training is tough - it's not just for the fitness and weight loss, its to forge mental steel. Training must tough be because the real world can be tougher. Participants will have to continue their journey without dedicated trainers, supportive peer pressure, under constant and easy availability of junk food and sedentary activities. In my view the show needn't apologise for being tough.

5. Michelle's recent own book advocates rapid weight loss as a valid strategy after her expereince on the show.

I'm sorry Noelle you had a bad experience.

However seeing the transformations that occured to Sharif when he appeared this week was one of the most moving and inspirational moments in my own weight loss journey.

Don't turn it off. Obese people, turn on and watch. Then use common sense.

Apostacy - while I don't disagree with the thrust of your comments I do have to say PLENTY of people on reality shows have complained about their treatment. Many of them because of how they were potrayed by selective editing and some who expected that a win would result in money that never eventuated. I have read one contestant's contract and I would never have allowed him to sign it IF THERE'D BEEN ANY ALTERNATIVE. As it was, they had people queueing up to sign anything they put in front of them so it was sign or no dice. I guess that's a choice - but try telling a teenager on the verge of stardom that.
That said, I agree that TBL can be compelling tv and no doubt has motivated many people to improve their lives.
It just irks me that they get tired, hungry, desperate people, isolate them from their loved ones (is this sounding like anything else to anyone) and then put them on tv and make them cry for people's entertainment. I think it would be just as entertaining and inspirational if they let them see their families and didn't make them weep constantly.