Nicki Anderson, named trainer of the year by IDEA Health & Fitness Association, criticizes the show's portrayal of exercise as an almost Herculean effort. "All the show does is reinforce to those who are overweight and inactive "See how hard [exercise] is?' ... For most people, exercise is going to be hard, but it doesn't have to be that hard."
Co-creator and executive producer J.D. Roth says the show is simply redefining what is realistically possible.
Most people - including doctors and fitness professionals - still cling to the idea that standard recommendations of moderate exercise and moderate weight loss are right for almost everyone, including the morbidly obese, he says. And some heavy folks have convinced themselves they can't do one push-up, let alone 10.
"Bob and Jillian had so much conviction about how much more these people could do," he says of the show's trainers, Bob Harper and Jillian Michaels. And as for the contestants: "In a way, these guys are trained like special forces. They're tired, they're overworked, but they're changing their food and exercise habits."
"People are watching the show to be inspired and not to feel hopeless anymore," he says.
If the show has a true believer about the power of abundant, intense exercise, it's Dr. Rob Huizenga, associate professor of clinical medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the show's medical consultant.
"One of the big selling points of the show," he says, "is that people learn things no one has taught them before, like how to exercise. People have no idea what they're capable of, and they don't understand that there are different exercise programs for heart health, for weight maintenance and for weight loss."
Huizenga scoffs at the notion that minimal amounts of low to moderate exercise, even done every day, will make a serious dent in a large weight-loss goal and advocates longer, tougher workouts - providing they are done with a doctor's OK and supervised if necessary. (Contestants on The Biggest Loser get rigorous health screenings - something viewers may not know - including a stress test, plus tests for diabetes and high blood pressure. An emergency medical technician is always on the set.)
About half the contestants had stayed within 5 pounds to 10 pounds of their "finale" weight at a two-year follow-up, he says, a percentage far higher than in most clinical research that typically results in far less weight loss, usually 8 percent to 10 percent of total body weight.
