Have you ever watched The Biggest Loser reality television show and wondered how real weight loss experts thought about it as a real weight loss program for obese patients? In my professional opinion, it is an unrealistic and unsustainable weight loss program and it’s only real value is entertainment.
One reason it is unrealistic is that the participants are screened and selected from tens of thousands of applicants and only the most highly motivated, most educated, most physically fit and healthy are selected. If they were randomly selected from the entire pool of applicants, their results would be less successful. Also, the average, obese, American adult can not quit their job, move away from their family, live isolated in a dorm room, hire a personal trainer, chef and dietician. Some of our patients have arthritis, back pain, or health issues that prevent them from exercising even 30 minutes a day.
Weight loss experts know that in order for a weight loss program to work long term, not temporarily, the lifestyle changes that the patients have to make must be “sustainable”. The show has created an artificial lifestyle which cannot be continued lifelong. It’s not surprising that magazines are reporting that within the first year of returning to their homes and normal lifestyles, participants gained their weight back. The commercials on the show try to sell their own brand of weight loss products, which when done away from the studio-created, “artificial lifestyle”, have the same long-term failure rate as all other nonsurgical weight loss programs for morbidly obese patients: greater than 95%!
When we give our seminars, the last slide I show is an encapsulation of the lifestyle changes we expect our patients to make after their surgery. I always conclude by telling the prospective patients that if they don’t believe they can make those lifestyle changes permanent, they shouldn’t go through with surgery.
Please remember that The Biggest Loser program is intended strictly for entertainment. From my experience treating obesity, I can tell you that the lifestyle changes portrayed on the show are neither practical nor sustainable.
– Dr. Darren Soong
Tags: Bariatric Surgeons, Gastric bypass, las vegas, Las Vegas Weight Loss Doctors, Weight Loss Surgeons, Weight Loss Surgery
