"Nutrition is half the battle." — Bob Harper, "The Biggest Loser" January 14, 2013
Maybe The Biggest Loser locked Bob in a room for 4½ hours with video games and junk food for telling the truth. Though Harper didn't say that to an adult contestant. He was talking to Biingo, one of the three teenagers, through the television, a rather ironic move.
If nutrition is half the battle, then why does "The Biggest Loser" and other diet TV shows spend so little time on nutrition?
The show has been running in 2-hour segments; factor in 45 minutes of actual programming in each hour. The childhood obesity segment ran 7:18 out of 90 minutes in one episode, 1:04 of that was explaining the segment.
Bob was giving the heads up to Biingo and the TV audience that the three teenagers were getting visits from Dr. Joanna.
Dr. Joanna (Dolgoff) is a pediatrician and child obesity specialist. At least on television, this doctor makes house calls.
Dr. Joanna told the viewing audience that she wanted to "talk to them about what they are eating and what they should be eating." By TBL standards, this was pretty radical. Actual conversation about food!!
We saw Biingo reflect out loud on the idea of nutrition. "I've never really thought about nutrition or my diet before, but I probably don't have the best eating habits." The visual, as he is telling us about his lack of nutrition knowledge, is him eating ice cream, Doritos, squeezable grape jelly on toast, and a chocolate snack roll. At least we know what Biingo shouldn't be eating.
Biingo tells us and Dr. Joanna that he spends 9 hours on a weekend day playing video games and 5 hours during the day. His parents seem pretty calm about this fact. Dr. Joanna focuses on Biingo eating while playing, pointing out that mindless eating means 25% more calories.
Dr. Joanna comes across overall as warm and child-friendly, but she seemed like she was reading off cue cards when reciting some of those stats to Biingo and his very laid-back parents.
Sunny's problem was reduced quickly to excess carbs. Sunny pointed out that she has been a vegetarian all her life. Dr. Joanna pointed out that some vegetarians become "carb-a-tarians" because "they are turning mostly to carbohydrates." Sunny points out that her family eats a lot of rice because of her (South Asian) heritage.
Dr. Joanna recommends switching out to brown rice from white rice and whole wheat bread from white bread "so you'll feel more full and eat fewer calories." Great advice overall. Sunny's problems don't seem to stem from white rice because we've seen her snack on junk food at stressful situations. Still this is the first information on what to eat, so we have to be impressed.
Poor Lindsay's face always looks like she is about to receive bad news. In this case, her face summed it up: Dr. Joanna tells Lindsay and her sister and mother than she has pre diabetes and that children in her situation will get diabetes in 2 years unless changes are made.
We don't hear her score or understand what the range is or any other explanation other than "we'll get through it. Makes our faces look as worried as Lindsay's.
Then we get to the real reason why Dr. Joanna is making house calls: throwing out processed junk foods into trash bags.
If this tactic sounds familiar, then you suffered along with Jillian Michaels' solo tour of yelling at people in their own homes.
Dr. Joanna is way more polite than Michaels ever was as she and the others throw away cookies, candy, and regular soda poured down the sink. She tells Sunny that you can have chocolate outside the house, but don't keep that in the house. Theoretically, you have to move to get outside to get the chocolate where if you are in the house, you can move a short distance in your slippers.
Once the "bad" food is thrown out, Dr. Joanna tells Lindsay and her family that they can replace the old food with "whole grains, lean protein, reduced fat dairy products, and fruits and vegetables."
That was the second and final mention of what to eat. The only way the adult contestants can find that out if to watch the show like we do.
As for those adult contestants, they participated in a quiz on childhood obesity statistics from the CDC. Alison Sweeney clearly has no future career as a game show host. The questions were portrayed as "trivia" when the questions were geared about having the teams make guesses on CDC statistics. The questions were designed to open the doors to guessing, not actual knowledge. And the teams did pretty badly. The losing team had to spend 4½ hours in a room with video games and junk food for a week.
The statistics were definite eye-openers to the contestants and the TV audience. Can't say I got that all correct either, but I was guessing as much as they were on TV.
Harper is ultimately correct that nutrition is half the battle. Yet these reality TV shows are afraid to show real nutrition information. The American public, which watches these shows on their collective asses on couches, needs more nutrition information ironically through television.
We doubted the sincerity of "The Biggest Loser" to help teenagers with their obesity, and we still have our concerns. But if having the teenagers on the show means we can get 7 minutes 18 seconds of sort of nutritional information, then progress has been made. But like a 302-pound person who only loses 2 pounds in a week, we have a long way to go.
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