Quote:
Originally Posted by Displaced Flames fan
I watched extreme makeover weightloss edition last night. The guy on there went from 493# to 238# in exactly 1 year. Half way through, at 317# he ran a triathalon with his trainer. 1.5 km swim, 40 km bike and 10 km run. During the run there were people passing him (yes he was pretty damn good in the water and on the bike) and offering congratulations and inspirations and telling him not to quit. I don't think he took it as condescending at all. I think he found it very helpful.
He finished in 4 hours and 20 minutes, his goal had been 6 hours.
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While I can see the point your making is that people may appreciate the encouragement, the mention that you saw this on Extreme Makeover Weightloss Edition doesn't sit too well with me. I haven't heard a lot about that show in particular, but I did recently read an interview with a former contestant from The Biggest Loser (
http://www.bodylovewellness.com/2010...t-part-1-of-3/).
What she describes is pretty despicable, and at first I was wondering if this was the way it was, why don't more former contestants speak up about it? Turns out that they sign a contract saying they can be fined from $100,000 to $1,000,000 if they conduct an interview that isn't approved by The Biggest Loser in advance. There's no way that this company is going to approve of an interview that's speaking poorly of what they're doing, so of course there's going to be an incredibly low number of contestants talking about it. I guess this still is just the voice of one contestant, so maybe it's not as bad as she makes it out to be, but it looks like the show has made sure we'll never really know. I'd be curious to know if Extreme Makeover Weightloss Edition has the same clause as The Biggest Loser.
Also, I think it's hard to tell how someone is actually taking something based on a TV show. I didn't see the episode myself, but it's possible it was edited to make it look like he was appreciating those comments, or maybe he was even told that that's how he needed to act because they wanted to put that kind of thing in the episode because it makes better TV.