Dr. Dansinger, I absolutely love watching "The Biggest Loser". The problem is that it's on when other shows I love to watch are on, too. I often flip channels, so I don't miss anything.
For awhile, I would get upset at the female trainer, as I felt she was very hard on contestants. I didn't like when she climbed on their backs, or had them pull her with things around their waists. Even though doctors are watching their health, I'm concerned about someone getting a heart attack during these extreme workouts.
I DO feel it's necessary to exercise strongly. I feel having younger people, whose skin will bounce back more easily from being stretched so far when they are overweight is better. After people lose the weight, they sometimes have to have operations for all the excess skin hanging over.
I feel my own motivation, but it IS very inspirational to see people who never had a date before, lose weight, fall in love, have hope, have children, and motivate other people in their towns and all around the world to lose weight, too. People have to "want" to do it. The program helps people stay in there.
There was the older woman from this last season that wanted to go home, but was convinced to stay. She was so happy she did.
I don't feel that "quick" weight loss is the answer. I feel people have to be SELF motivated, or they will gain it back. Many are ready emotionally to do it.
It would be helpful to have "emotional" help(therapy) for some of these people to deal with what is "eating THEM". For me, therapy helped me to stop my emotional eating. I did it to soothe myself. Some people do that with drink, some with sex additions...but mine was food and work. I kept myself really busy. Learning about "why" I ate, helped me to heal inside. By healing inside,
I learned to value myself. I no longer wanted to be heavier. That and getting diabetes were the turning point for eating healthier and exercising more. It has to be in your HEAD first, or it won't work. Julian and Bob try to help with that.
They're not therapists though, but I've seen some of the contestants break down and open up "why" they were eating so much to hide the pain.
I do love the final weigh ins at the end of each show. It's disappointing for some who worked really hard all week long and ate well. Everyone is different in how their bodies lose the weight. Some people are able to build more muscle which burns more fat.
For me...I feel happy seeing "them" learning to love themselves more.
So...mostly, the show is something I enjoy. I feel the show HAS inspired people to lose weight, but it is unrealistic to think you can lose that much weight each week, and might discourage some people who try to do things on their own.