Kai Hubbard was a season 3 finalist on the US version of The Biggest Loser. Recently she told Body Love Wellness blogger, Golda Poretsky, about the realities of being on the show. These included severe food restriction, dehydration, being forced to work out while severely injured and trainers overriding doctor’s instructions. Her hair fell out, her period stopped and she developed an eating disorder she has yet to completely recovered from.
Sort of shatters The Biggest Loser fantasy doesn’t it?
Kai’s brave revelations provide further evidence that the show is a danger to good health, as argued here in the past including in this piece by eating disorder specialist Lydia Turner of BodyMattersAustralasia . Despite a raft of waivers and contracts, Kai decided to speak out because so many people were using her as an example of what they could achieve if they tried hard enough. She wanted them to know the true nature of the show and how it made her hate her body in a way she never had before.
Here’s some extracts from Kai’s interview with Golda (used with permission):
…We were working out anywhere between 2 and 5 hours a day, and we were working out severely injured. There’s absolutely no reason to work a 270 pound girl out so hard that she pukes the first time you bring in a gym. That was entirely for good tv.
…So I got to a point where I was only eating about 1,000 calories a day and I was working out between 5 and 8 hours a day…And my hair started to fall out. I was covered in bruises. I had dark circles under my eyes…my period stopped altogether and I was only sleeping 3 hours a night. I tried to tell the T.V. show about it and I was told, ‘save it for the camera.’
..my major food groups were water, black coffee and splenda. I got to the point that when I was nervous or upset I was literally vomiting my food up…
[The show] gave me a really fun eating disorder that I battle every day, and it also messed up my mental body image because the lighter I got during that T.V. show, the more I hated my body. And I tell you what, at 144 and at 262 and at 280, I had never hated my body before that show.
Read the full interview here:
5 Responses
I read about this a while back. These were the comments i made at the time:
I have wondered, over the years, if TBL was simply just replacing one eating disorder (compulsive overeating) with another (anything from anorexia, to bulimia, to EDNOS), rather than helping people to heal.
After numerous stories like this one from former contestants, i can’t help but think i might be right.
Where is the psychological & emotional support, to help these people truly investigate & deal with the reasons behind their disorder? Oh, that’s right – not important to tv ratings, thus not important at all, right?
Of course (aside from the enormous risk they take with both the physical & psychological wellbeing of the contestants), i will never endorse this show for the simple reason that it turns weight loss into a competition.
First of all, not everyone needs to fit into a set weight range to be healthy, nor do they need to in order to feel happy & fulfilled.
Second of all, people that do need to lose weight for their health, need to do so in a healthy & sustainable way – The Biggest Loser DOES NOT provide this.
Also:
I must say, i really admire Kai for speaking out about this (it can be really hard to admit to an eating disorder of any kind), especially knowing the sort of legal backlash she might face:
“You know what? Sue me if you want to, NBC, but I’m telling these people.”
“I’m terrified sometimes at the idea that I’m putting my family at risk to talk about it, but . . . my family’s taught me that you can’t go wrong with the truth. I’m just going to do what I’ve got to do.”
TBL is not at all about health, and it is depressing that the show tries to legitimize itself by claiming that it improves the health of contestants and even viewers. At the same time, they advertise dangerous dieting behaviour (like using meal replacements instead of actual food). It really is a big fat example of what is very wrong with the weight loss industry.
Jackie, I largely agree with you – except that it’s not right to assume that fat people have an eating disorder. You can’t tell from looking at someone whether they engage in disordered eating (not all thin people are anorexic: not all fat people are compulsive over eaters). I’m sure TBL probably implies that the contestants have EDs but this doesn’t mean that they all do.