Skip to main content

Tons of courage

A report published last month showed that two-thirds of U.S. adults and some 25 million children are obese or overweight.

When I read that recently, I almost swallowed my sugar-free gum and spewed my Diet Pepsi.

So in the sense that it is helping some of those obese Americans lose their weight, I applaud NBC's show The Biggest Loser. However, after watching tonight's episode, I'm concerned that the emphasis on quick weight loss isn't very realistic and might do more harm than good to Fat America's psyche.

The show, billed as "the first reality series where everybody loses," brings together a group of "severely overweight participants" competing to drop the most pounds and gain $250,000. Contestants are put through their paces, tongue-lashed, kicked and humiliated by a personal trainer over 15 episodes in front of a TV audience expected to exceed last season's U.S. viewer average of 8 million per show.

From what I can gather, these people -- some who weigh more than 400 pounds -- work out many hours every day and eat a low-calorie diet. Then once a week, they step on the scale in front of their teammates and 8 million others wearing very little clothing and revealing many blubbery rolls. And they get disappointed when one contestant only loses 7 pounds. They get voted off the "fat farm," so to speak, if their teammates think they haven't been trying hard enough.

So the moral of this story, ladies and gentlemen, is -- abandon your day job, bust your butt working out full time, go on national television with it all hanging out (including some fairly impressive man boobs going on, that seem far more questionable to me than Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction), lose a perfectly reasonable amount of weight, be chastised and ridiculed by your peers, and be utterly rejected by millions of people who will joke about you around the office water cooler as they snarf their vending machine Doritos and Little Debbie snack cakes.

I hope I'm wrong in my assessment. I hope viewers are inspired to get in shape, eat more nutritiously, commend these large folks for having the guts to try, and cheer them to the ultimate success -- which is not just about the number on the scale, but about the feeling in one's heart. Do these "losers" feel like winners in the grander scheme? Are they proud of what they've accomplished? Do they love themselves a little more than before?

In a world where people called a rather normal, average-looking Britney Spears "fat" the day after she appeared at the MTV Music Awards, we have to ask ourselves who's setting the bar for healthy, realistic, long-lasting weight loss in this country. (She's had two kids, I've only had one, and I'd KILL to look like that. I had more gut than that before I ever conceived of conceiving.) Are we destined to increase the gap between the have-too-muchs and have-not-enoughs, so that we end up with only the extremes -- obesity or anorexia? Pick your end of the continuum...you're guaranteed to "lose" either way.

Comments

I think it all comes down to this: The more we, as a society, can feel inadequate and in need of change, the more we spend. Sometimes we "need" fancier cars; sometimes we "need" fancier cell phones; sometimes we "need" skinnier selves.

Whatever we need, someone is getting rich.

A while ago I stepped back and thought about the term "consumer." In the news, we are so often referred to, first and foremast -- and so impersonally -- as "consumers."

Instead, maybe -- just maybe -- we are "persons" first. Persons who happen to consume, that is.

I could go on and on.

We are such pawns... myself included.

Popular posts from this blog

Holy Separated-At-Birth, Batman!

Gary Oldman...meet Uncle Knit-Knots from Imagination Movers.

So, I Changed My Mind

More than four years ago, the blog and I parted ways. I needed a change. A whole lot happened in my world since then. I switched jobs a couple times. My kid went from an elementary school tween to a teenage high schooler. We built a new house and moved. Both my parents and my sister have passed. The world around me changed as well. Mass shootings, racism, the #metoo movement, a misogynistic bigoted narcissist in the White House ... go ahead, add to the list. Toss your woes into this dumpster fire we call 2019.  I appreciate my previous sentiment, that I was no longer wandering. But let's be honest, we're all trying to find our way through this mess. I decided to reboot the blog to give myself a creative outlet, a way to sort through the confusion and frustration and attempt to make sense of it all. I have a voice, and I'm not keen to silence it anymore. Guess what? I'm back, bitches.

In memoriam...

I remember the first time I heard the name "Les Anderson." A bunch of Wichita State University communication majors were sitting around on campus, talking about classes they planned to take. Several people warned me: watch out for Les Anderson. He was tough. He had a murderous grading scale. It was nearly impossible to get an A. They weren't kidding. But he wasn't tough just to be a tyrant. From his teaching sprang a fleet of incredible, successful journalists, writers, editors, broadcasters, public relations experts, advertisers, non-profit professionals...I could go on and on. Most importantly, he created a legion of people who wanted to make a difference in the world. The greatest gift Les gave to them all? He believed in them, cared about them for their own personal stories as well as the stories they told for class assignments or in the pages of his hometown newspaper. Les was my teacher. My boss. My mentor. My conscience. My champion. My friend. When I started c...