Dear Ice Cream, We're Over

Although I happen to be a healthy weight (for now), I just took a quiz and learned that it might be only a matter of time until I too join the ranks of the overweight. I scored a 50% on this nutrition quiz, and while I am well aware that I should stay away from many of my favorite foods, there were many things that I did not know about. While I have always wondered how many people allow themselves to reach weights of over 500 pounds, when I look at even my own eating habits, I realize that self control is hard to exercise, and that nutrition knowledge is not something most people have. Shows such as "The Biggest Loser" attempt to give their audience this knowledge, teaching them how to exercise, what to eat, and what obesity does to your health. The real question is, are shows like this an effective way to send a message to the American public?

There are many out there, NBC in particular, who believe that these shows inspire people to lose weight and get healthy. But there are just as many people who seriously doubt the effectiveness of these shows, and believe that they may do more harm than good. Stephanie Pappas, of LiveScience.com, is in this latter group of non-believers. She feels that these shows are not only unable to inspire, but may actually be dangerous to the health of the contestants. "The Biggest Loser" is taking obese Americans, some of them upwards of 500 pounds, and throwing them into strenuous activity. The amount of exercise that they are required to do would exhaust even a healthy and fit person. This season started with a 26.2 mile bike ride split between two partners. 13 miles is a pretty serious ride for someone who exercises, but for someone who weighs more than 500 pounds this ride is almost unthinkable. While this makes for good television, is it really safe to push the limits this far?

Beyond pushing the physical limits of weight loss, the show may also be pushing the psychological boundaries. Losing weight is not something set in a time frame, but it is instead an ongoing struggle. Losing weight and keeping it off requires making a life change, and some people are not capable of that level of self control. There is a reason why many of these contestants have reached these weights, and while the show tries to tap into deep emotional reasons why each turned to food, the simpler answer is that many of us can't say no to our cravings (which of course come late at night and always ask for sugar). On "The Biggest Loser," the diet of each contestant is heavily regulated, and they have trainers pushing them everyday for four to five hours a day. If that wasn't enough each contestant has $250,000 looming over their heads and the pressure of being filmed day in and day out. On the show the contestants drop double digit numbers each week, never realizing that in the real world healthy weight loss is one to two pounds per week. Once they are back in the real world, many contestants fall back into their old lifestyles and eating habits, regain the weight, and then become discouraged. Despite being told that one to two pounds is a healthy and reasonable weight loss, it would be hard for anyone used to losing 15 pounds a week to start losing only two pounds a week when they still had so much weight to lose.

What I've learned this week is that I better start thinking more about what I eat. Dietary habits can catch up to you at anytime, and they are difficult to change. The longer I allow myself to indulge all those cravings the harder it is to change. Goodbye late night ice cream binge, you will be missed.