The Biggest Loser Documentary: What They Still Aren’t Talking About

When the Biggest Loser documentary came out, I wasn’t surprised that the focus was on dramatic transformations, the prize money, and the rise and fall of one of TV’s most controversial reality shows. But what struck me most wasn’t what they covered, it’s what they left out.

Because once again, the conversation stayed on the surface: the spectacle, the numbers on the scale, and whether the show was “fair.” What didn’t get airtime was the deep harm it caused to contestants’ mental health, to our culture’s understanding of bodies, and to the way we still talk about health and weight today.

The Self-Blame Narrative

One of the most painful themes throughout the documentary was how contestants blamed themselves. They blamed themselves for their weight, for regaining weight, for “failing” after the cameras stopped rolling.

This is the cruelest trick of diet culture: it convinces people that their bodies are moral scorecards. If you can’t shrink yourself or maintain an impossible weight loss, it must be your fault. Never mind the metabolic adaptations, the unrealistic food restrictions, or the hours of exercise that no human could sustain alongside a real life.

The show never taught self-trust, body respect, or actual health behaviors. It only taught control and shame. So of course, when contestants couldn’t sustain it, they thought the problem was them.

What Was Missing: Mental Health

The documentary touched on the prize money, the harsh methods, the long-term weight regain. But what about the mental health toll?

Where was the discussion of contestants developing disordered eating, food fears, or exercise compulsions? Where was the acknowledgment that being screamed at on national TV, weighed in half-naked in front of millions, and turned into a punchline has lasting psychological consequences?

Research backs this up: dieting and extreme weight loss attempts increase the risk of eating disorders, depression, and anxiety. And yet, the show (and now the documentary) still frames the harm as mainly about the money or the weight regain—not the trauma. The producers actually said this, if/when we did this show again, we wouldn’t make it about the money. They still believe that was the harmful part!

Fat = Unhealthy? Let’s Talk About Bob

One of the show’s central messages was always: fat equals unhealthy. Thin equals healthy. Lose the weight, win health and happiness.

But then there’s Bob Harper. Bob, the thin, fit trainer who represented the “ideal” body throughout the show, had a near-fatal heart attack. And suddenly, the story shifted. His health crisis wasn’t blamed on his body size, it was “genetics.”

Do you see the double standard?

When fat contestants had health concerns, their bodies were blamed. When Bob had a health crisis, his body got a pass. This is exactly how weight stigma works: thin people are seen as individuals with complex health, fat people are reduced to “your body is the problem.”

The O-Word: Why Language Matters

Another thing the documentary couldn’t seem to stop doing? Using the word o word. Every other word was “o this” and “o epidemic that.”

Here’s the problem: “o” is not just a descriptor, it’s a stigmatizing medical label. It pathologizes a body size, reducing people to a disease category instead of human beings with whole, complex lives. When you call someone “o,” you’re not neutral you’re reinforcing the message that their very existence is a health crisis.

And let’s be honest: this is why so many of the contestants in the documentary blamed themselves. The language itself told them they were a problem to be solved. That their bodies weren’t just bodies, but epidemics. That unless they changed, they weren’t worthy.

We know from research that weight stigma is harmful in itself. It increases stress, disordered eating, avoidance of medical care, and poorer health outcomes. Yet the documentary still leaned into the idea that the word “o” is scientific and therefore unquestionable.

Meanwhile, the word “thin” was never medicalized. Bob wasn’t labeled as having “thinness disease” when he had a heart attack. He was seen as a person. Contestants in larger bodies were seen as pathologies. That double standard? It’s stigma, plain and simple.

What If You Weren’t Meant to Live in a Smaller Body?

The documentary raised questions about whether contestants could sustain their losses. But no one asked the bigger, scarier question: if it takes extreme measures to shrink a body, maybe that body was never meant to be smaller in the first place.

This is true whether we’re talking about crash diets, punishing boot camps, or even the newer wave of weight loss drugs like GLP-1s. If maintaining weight loss requires constant intervention, what does that tell us? Maybe weight regain isn’t a failure. Maybe it’s biology protecting us. Maybe the problem isn’t people’s bodies—it’s a culture that demands those bodies shrink at any cost.

The Biggest Loser’s Legacy

The sad truth is that The Biggest Loser wasn’t just entertainment, it set the tone for how a generation of viewers thought about weight and health. It normalized public shaming, extreme dieting, and the idea that bodies are projects to be fixed.

Even now, the conversation is stuck: Was the prize money worth it? Did the contestants “keep it off”? Did the show go too far?

Here’s what we should be asking instead:

• What harm did this show cause to contestants’ mental health?

• How many people watching at home developed disordered eating or shame about their own bodies because of it?

• Why are we still blaming people in larger bodies for health outcomes, while excusing the same outcomes in thin bodies?

• What does it say that the only way to achieve and maintain weight loss (whether through Biggest Loser-style training camps or GLP-1s) is through unnatural, unsustainable means?

What We Deserve Instead

We deserve a narrative that moves past shame and blame. One that recognizes health is about far more than body size. One that understands that mental health is health. One that acknowledges that bodies are diverse, and not all bodies are meant to be small.

Because the real biggest loser here isn’t the contestant who gained back weight. It’s all of us who were taught to equate worth with a number on the scale, and who were denied the chance to see that health, joy, and belonging don’t come from shrinking ourselves.

The Takeaway

The documentary may have stirred nostalgia, controversy, and debate. But the conversation it avoided was the one about mental health, stigma, and the double standards we apply to bodies. This was the one that matters most.

So let’s stop asking whether the contestants failed or whether the show was “too harsh.” Let’s start asking: what would it look like to build a world where we don’t need a Biggest Loser in the first place?