Send the right message

[CuJo1992]

There’s a lot of problems boiling up from the show The Biggest Loser because of the way that people are forced to try to lose weight really quickly so that they will be able to win a lot of money. Rachel Fredrickson, the winner of the biggest loser, also went on to lose more weight after she stopped the show’s really strict regimen. She won the $250,000, but she looks unbelievably skinny now and even the judges of the show looked stunned at how she looks now. Social media took off saying that people have tweeted and posted that she looks anorexic.

Experts are cautioning us to take a look at the types of things that we’re saying about people’s weight so that we start to build a more constructive and healthy outlook on weight. Though we shouldn’t be extremely heavy, we shouldn’t be extremely thin, either. We should be focusing on health, not size.


Biggest Loser’s Rachel Fredrickson’s 155-pound weight loss under scrutiny while experts say criticism ‘can’t be helpful’ | National Post

[bruceH]

It's really hard to stay on track with that kind of thing. You see someone on television who is really obese and I can be the first to admit that the first thing that I do is judge or make a comment. It's not something that I think makes me a good person - especially because it's really the pot calling the kettle black because I'm pretty heavy, myself - but it just happens. It's like we are programmed to do it because that's what we learn all our lives.

This is really sad, though that she thought she should wither herself right down to a stick. You're right. It's important that we stop thinking that thin is attractive. There is such thing as too thin just like being too heavy.

[tara]

This has been a really big problem with dieting and with obesity. We're obsessed with being skinny, but we are mostly far away from that. We judge people who are heavy as though they have committed some kind of crime. But now we're also seeming to tell people that being so skinny that they are unhealthy is actually desirable.

Why would we think that one end of the scale is gross but the other extreme is beautiful, even if they are equally unhealthy? As a society, we need to give ourselves a communal change in perspective. Size zero is not beautiful on most people. If you're very petite, fine, it's part of a healthy proportion. But for the average person, that's just too small!

[Tiff]

I have often wondered if this important change will happen in my lifetime.

[freddyboy]

I have often wondered if this important change will happen in my lifetime.

It says something about people as a whole that this is a problem

[chefmel]

You're really right, Freddyboy. It's been a problem for a long time, too, but it's not like it's human nature to like the look of super skinny people. for most of history, that was the opposite of attractive and it was people who were a little bit heavier who were considered attractive. We just have to work on making this trend go out of fashion

[madscientist]

That show seems creepy to me. Extremes just really aren't healthy in your body or in your attitude.