Bite Back with Abbey Sharp - The Biggest Loser Exposed: Rapid Weight Regain, EDs, Broken Bodies & More with Fit for TV Director Skye Borgman

Episode Date: September 9, 2025

Here’s a run down of what we discussed in today’s episode:IntroductionThe Biggest Loser and the Ethics of Extreme Weight LossShocking Harms: Contestants Speak Out on Lasting Health HarmsScapegoats and Responsibility: Who Held the PowerFatphobia and Humiliation As EntertainmentLife After the Show: Shame, Visibility, & IdentityHave We Evolved Since 2004—or Just Rebranded Fatphobia?The Ozempic Era: Is Weight Loss Entertainment Dead?Body Transformations, Virality, and the Cost of VisibilityEntertainment vs. True Health: Can They Coexist?The Lasting Fallout: Injuries, Metabolic Damage, and Weight RegainWhy Unsustainable Weight Loss Isn’t Compatible with LifeLearning from The Biggest Loser’s Mistakes Check in with today’s amazing guest: Skye BorgmanWebsite: skyeborgman.comInstagram: @skyeborgman Disclaimer: The content in this episode is for educational and entertainment purposes only and is never a substitute for medical advice. If you’re struggling with with your mental or physical health, please work one on one with a health care provider.If you have heard yourself in our discussion today, and are looking for support, contact the free NEDIC helpline at 1-866-NEDIC-20 or go to eatingdisorderhope.com.  🥤 Check out my 2-in-1 Plant Based Probiotic Protein Powder, neue theory at www.neuetheory.com or @neuetheory and use my promo code BITEBACK20 to get 20% off your order! Don’t forget to Please subscribe on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts and leave us a review! It really helps us out. ✉️ SUBSCRIBE TO MY NEWSLETTERS ⤵️Neue Theory newsletterAbbey's Kitchen newsletter 🥞 FREE HUNGER CRUSHING COMBO™ E-BOOK! 💪🏼 FREE PROTEIN 101 E-BOOK! 📱 Follow me! Instagram: @abbeyskitchenTikTok: @abbeyskitchenYouTube: @AbbeysKitchen My blog, Abbey’s Kitchen www.abbeyskitchen.comMy book, The Mindful Glow Cookbook affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3NoHtvf If you liked this podcast, please like, follow, and leave a review with your thoughts and let me know who you want me to discuss next!

This was a TV show, and I think everything just falls to the side, except for good ratings. Let's make it as good as we can. Let's make it as crazy as we can. And that was the number one goal. Welcome to another episode of Bite Back with Abby Sharp, where I dismantled die culture rules, call it the charlatans spinning the pseudoscience, and help you achieve food freedom for good. Today we are going back to the toxic 2000s to unearth 17 seasons worth of some of the most inhumane primetime television I have ever seen. Contestants sobbed on scales, collapsed on treadmills, and competed for one thing. To lose as much weight as they could, publicly and at any and all cost. Today I'm joined by award-winning filmmaker Sky Borgman, the director of the brand-new Netflix

docu-series Fit for TV that chronicles the insane cultural moment that was the biggest loser. If you haven't watched Fit for TV yet, the show recounts stories of shame, disordered eating, metabolic damage, and deep psychological wounds that contestants endured to make producers and trainers a shit ton of cash. This isn't just a story about wildly successful television. It is a story about us, our fears, our fantasies, and our complicated relationships with our bodies. Now, before we dive in, we will be discussing extreme weight loss here, so please feel free to skip this episode if it's not supportive to your journey. I also want to note that there is a lot of he said, she said going on between the players of the biggest loser.

So any statements related to specific experiences or people are alleged. Finally, I would love a follow and share or comment wherever you are listening right now. It really does help me get the word out. All right. I'm very excited about the conversation, so let's get into it. Hi, Sky. I am such a massive. fan of everything you've directed. I thought abducted in plain sight was the most

fucked up story I've ever heard. But honestly, rewatching a lot of those scenes from the biggest loser, I think this might be more fucked up. So thank you for bringing it back to life and starting this conversation. Oh, well, thank you so much for for watching, for having me on the podcast. I'm so excited to be here. I have so many things I want to ask about because fit for TV, you know, brought up so many harrowing details from the series that I don't really know where to start. But something that obviously stood out to me as a dietitian was the absolute disregard for safety and ethics, just humanity towards these contestants. And I think Aubrey Gordon said, you know, her sentiment was basically, well, now that you're

fat, I'm allowed to treat you any way I want. So there seemed to be this like pressure on the trainers to make them puke or pass out. in many cases, just like inhumane activities here. And, you know, these challenges may not have been run by their resident doctor. What shocked you the most about participants' treatment or the health harms that many contestants experienced after the fact? Honestly, I think what shocked me the most was that I had watched the biggest loser 20 years ago or maybe less than that.

But what shocked me the most is that I hadn't really recognized it then. And I'm recognizing it now. And when this project first started and we were all talking about doing a documentary on the biggest loser, I was like, okay. And so I went back and started watching and was like, oh, my God, because what I remembered from it and what I talked to other people like in my family when I mentioned that I was doing this documentary, I remembered these inspirational stories of people losing all these gigantic amounts of weight. And I thought, this is good. And going back and revisiting it, I was like, this is hard. And that sort of mind shift for me or lack of knowing what had been going on was probably one of the most shocking things. It was for me too.

I mean, looking back, I was probably, I don't know, maybe a teenager when it first aired. And I also remember being so into it. I watched, you know, every episode I felt inspired. I didn't need to lose weight, but I just was inspired by these people. The work ethic, the, you know, motivation, watching Julie. and Michaels, I was like, yeah, tough love. Like, this is what these people need. Obesity is terrible. Like, looking back, I'm so mortified that I had that, like, view of these people. And, you know, years ago, once, of course, I realized the harms of diet culture like this, I interviewed

Kai Hibbard, who won season three, who after the show ended up with, you know, severe hair loss, menstrual regularity, knee injury, thyroid problems, insomnia. short-term memory loss, like such terrible shin splints from overexercising that her doctor was surprised she was even able to walk. Like, you know, it was, to me, was just never about the health. And I only see this now because, of course, back then, we only talked about weight equals health. Weight equals health. Obesity is unhealthy. And one of the things that really shocked me watching the docu-series was just the lack of remorse on behalf of a lot of the people that you interviewed. I felt like we got a bit there from like Dr. H, but I expected a lot more from Bob than just like a pass off of

responsibility onto the producers. All they said, we have to do this. Oh, you know, there's a lot of finger pointing going on. What are your thoughts of what actually went down there? Look, I think it's a combination of many different things happening. I know that Bob and Gillian were hired to be these trainers. I know that as the seasons went on, they were getting a little bit a lot more recognition. And so I knew that their voices probably were able to be a little bit more magnified as the seasons went on. But I think at the end of the day, this was an opportunity for both of them to kind of be in the spotlight to advance their careers. Look, from the producer's point of view, there should have been a much more holistic 360-degree look at the people involved in this show from a psychologist who I don't think was ever part of the show to talk about.

the reasons behind a lot of these things to the nutritionist. There's a medical doctor on there, but not really a nutritionist. And so these trainers were expected in TV world to be all of those things, except for the medical staff. But what was really foremost is that this was a TV show. And I think everything just falls to the side, except for good ratings. Let's make it as like exciting as we can make it. Let's make it as good as we can. Let's make it as good as we can. make it as crazy as we can. And that was the number one goal. But again, I just felt like looking back, there should have been some kind of recognition of their, you know, their responsibility in all this. I just felt like watching your docu-series and watching the interviews with all the

different players. There was a lot of passing the buck when everyone who participated, even if it wasn't their idea, like right down to the host, Alison Sweeney, everyone involved did harm. And I would have loved to see more accountability just across the board there. I would have loved to as well because what was striking to me too is that every single one of the participants that we spoke to, they were such incredible interviews because they'd done a massive amount of internal work. They've thought about things in such a deep way. And it's not common when you sit down and talk to people that they'd done this kind of work. And every single participant had. And that wasn't really the case when you're talking about the biggest loser

with the creators of it, with the hosts of it, that they thought about it in such a deep way. And Jillian Michaels now kind of coming back online who declined being interviewed, she was often painted as like the lead villain of a lot of these harms. Again, she wasn't interviewed, but she did respond online to some of these allegations with email receipts for some of the things that some of the other folks on the docu-series were saying. I'm just curious how that all shook out in terms of who actually was at fault with a lot of these harmful behaviors and actions that happened on set. I mean, I think it's just the finger-pointing that sort of continues.

We did reach out to Jillian more than once to see if she wanted to participate in the documentary. She did not. I think she was prepared for the documentary to come out. I mean, you know, it was publicized and she knew it was coming out. whether or not, you know, some of the allegations that caffeine supplements were actually legal on the show. You know, we have people saying they weren't. Now she comes out and says that they are. You know, it's a little bit of a he said, she said. So knowing the absolute truth, I think it lies really somewhere very much in the middle. Yeah. No, absolutely.

And, you know, I want to talk about harms. Like, it wasn't just the physical harms here. You know, this show went out of its way to reinforce that. phobic tropes and paint contestants as these weak, lazy, grotesque animals. Like the challenge that has always stood out to me is when they would have contestants like build a tower of all these quote junk foods with their mouths without eating it, like I guess to test their willpower or there was another one where they put them in horse stables to run with the lost weight as just like a cautionary tale not to gain it back. I'm curious. After contestants, I assumedly watched these clips back themselves on the show, did they ever talk about how their portrayal on the show affected their sense of self going forward?

So it's interesting because one of the things I learned from a couple of the participants, which was a big surprise to me, was that they felt that the biggest loser had and the portrayal of them doing physical things, not necessarily the food towers and the stables. But of doing these physical acts actually was a positive thing because it presented them as capable. It presented them as athletes. It presented them as something not lazy. And so it was really fascinating to me that this idea, because they talk about feeling invisible and that the biggest loser actually gave them a stage in which to present themselves and change people's perception of them. Now, whether or not that happens, we can argue about.

that. But I think that looking back, look, a lot of these contestants have been out of the biggest loser world for a number of years now, looking back at some of these scenes. And that's what we did, right? We sat them down and in front of the lens, we played the scenes back. So they're watching them in real time. And I think it's been a long time since they've watched it. And since they've been able to really think about the harm that was being done to them, the shaming that was going on. And it was really, it was really heartbreaking, honestly, to sort of watch them, watch themselves being treated this way.

Yeah. I'm curious just what kind of words were used to describe that experience back in real time. From them? Mm-hmm. I mean, they were just, sometimes they were sort of speechless. You know, they couldn't really, they couldn't really articulate some of them. the things that they were feeling. But for the most part, you know, they, they, they felt like there was a lot of shame going on, that there was a lot of screaming and dehumanizing going on.

Yeah. Yeah. I was really moved when I think it was Danny Cahill who talked about this overwhelming shame of becoming a failure after a success after he gained the weight back as, you know, we'll talk about this, but of course he was, you know, we've set up to gain the weight back. And I think Aubrey Gordon talked about this juxtaposition for fat folks, like you said, of like being invisible in society or just like kind of written off, but at the same time just so hyper-visible, just like stare at like an animal in a circus. Did the contestants talk about how they felt they were seen in the world before and then after the show, particularly for those who did gain that way back? like they, you know, they might have felt like a hero coming off the show, but then what? Yeah, I mean, it was, it was interesting because there were a lot of them who had these sort of different type of careers after the show. They were famous, you know, they were, they were now

reality stars, you know, they sort of expect that going into reality series. But these folks, you know, at the beginning of this reality television sort of wild, wild west, they didn't really know that was going to happen, at least in the earlier seasons. But so they came. out of this, they felt like they'd achieved a massive success, something they've been working and struggling with their entire lives to lose this weight. It's always been a very important thing to them. They're able to achieve it on the show. Some of them are able to win the show and take home $250,000. And then there's on, you know, the doctors. They're on Oprah. They're on all of these different shows talking about their experience and they've succeeded. And some of them

were able to keep the weight off, and others, it sort of slowly or quickly creeps back on. And so it's a very, a very common feeling with all of them that they'd, that had this success and then they'd thrown it away because they gained this weight back and not having a real sense of where, why it went, how it went, why it came back, and really sort of struggling with that. Yeah. I mean, I think part of that is also. just the lack of post game show support that they were given. I mean, really, they were, they were set up to be famous for, you know, those five minutes on the, on the scale at that last finale and then go do, you know, bye, you know, figure it out yourself when really they did not have

the tools to figure it out themselves. Yeah. I'm curious in all your research and your interviews, did you, did you ever sense, like, have we meaningfully, have we meaningfully evolved in like our cultural dialogue around weight since the biggest loser? Or are we just like using new language to just mask the same biases or shift the metrics by which we judge people? I think we're just, look, maybe a little bit. We've evolved a little bit. But I think ultimately we're just using new language. And we're more. careful to not be viewed in certain ways, right? But all of these things like, and Aubrey Gordon was masterful at sort of talking about how she's still looked at, how she's judged just from walking down the street. And so I think with these campaigns, like these dove campaigns that show women of different

body sizes, you know, we can kind of feel good about ourselves if we're only willing to look sort of an inch in front of our faces, but actual change in our perceptions, actually change in medical world perceptions, actual change is not here. We're not living in it right now. I think it's maybe not as bad. Like, could a show like the biggest loser be on TV today? Maybe. I mean, maybe it could. You know, I think we're all really willing. I don't. We're all willing to say, no, no, no, there's no way it could. But I actually think it's possible. And that's terrifying. Yeah.

Yeah. No, I've spent my whole career analyzing diet culture online, and I do feel that the body checks and the before and afters and the wedding of days, they all reinforce the same narrative that the biggest loser reinforced, which is that our bodies are problems to be fixed. Thinness equals success and health. Eating must be earned and tracked and aestheticized. And, you know, no different than with the biggest loser. often don't have context and we don't know what happens behind the scenes, like the binge cycles and the burnout and the weight regain and the disordered eating. And again, no different than with TV. Like the algorithm will always favor spectacle over nuance. So yeah, like, yeah, maybe we've

swapped Jillian Michaels screaming in your face to stay on the treadmill or die for this like perfect edited, you know, clip to a trending song. But ultimately, the underlying message is still that smaller is better and control is everything. And you're, worth is measured in likes and pounds and macros. And so it is, it is hard to watch this comfort circle. It is. And it, and it's also interesting because it shifted, right? So maybe Biggest Loser, that TV show couldn't exist today. But when you look at influencers and you look at some of the following, followings of these influencers and the messaging of these influencers, it's no different than what the biggest loser was saying. And so, so I wish, I wish I could say,

we've learned it all. We're great. We've got nowhere to go. But I think we've got just as far to go as we did 20 years ago. We do. Especially, you know, there's this new kind of trend emerging of this quote, quote, skinny talk era that we're seeing on social media, which really the messages are exactly the same messages we saw in the Jillian Michaels, you know, biggest loser phase of kind of weight content. And actually, that brings me to talking about this. ozempic era that we're now in. Because obviously back in 2004, if we had powerful anti-obesity agents like ozempic, we probably wouldn't have seen the biggest loser play out the way that it did because part of the biggest loser phenomenon and allure was that it felt so aspirational to watch

these everyday people work their asses off literally and, you know, feel miserable and sick and tired and depleted. But when they got on that scale, the sentiment was that they earned that win for all day sacrificed. And unfortunately, a lot of folks, you know, in this extreme weight loss community, like we've seen on Skinny Talk, are calling OZempic users lazy or, quote, quote, taking the easy way out. And I really think that this is, you know, often done in an effort to maintain identity capital where they've earned achieving their thin body, the quote unquote hard way. What do you think is next for weight loss entertainment? Or can we say this? Is this, is this dead for good? Or what do you think is coming? I mean, I can't imagine it's dead

for good because I think that it's something we're all fascinated by. We all, I mean, from the beginning when I first came on and started researching this documentary, I told everybody involved, I said, this is not a documentary about the biggest loser. This is a documentary about our relationship with our bodies. And every single person on the planet has a relationship to their body. And that's really what. I wanted to get across with this dokey series. Of course, we're taking the biggest loser. We're looking at it through the lens of the biggest loser and all of that.

But our relationship with our bodies is something that is so universal. And to have that big of a mind shift that we're all able to sort of think about loving our bodies in whatever shape or size and what does health mean to each and every individual person, it's a big step. And it's also gutting a multi-million dollar industry, right? I mean, this diet culture is, there's a lot of money to be made in this diet culture. And so I just don't think that the powers that be that sort of control all of this are ever going to let that happen. Right. No, it won't. It can't. And I also, I think, you know, thanks to social media, just our collective obsession with visibility in general is never going away. And we often see these extreme transformations as the price of visibility and virality. And I think any show that is specifically focused on body transformations will ultimately always kind of reinforce this fatphobic assumption that larger body people need to earn their way into public spaces through pain and shame and suffering.

And so you're right, weight loss entertainment is never going away because we are fascinated by weight loss. we always are going to want to know what that person is doing to look that certain way and this assumption that, oh, if we just do what they do, then we will look like them. And it's, it is toxic, unfortunately, and I don't know the way out. Do you think that, generally speaking, entertainment for the masses and true health for the individual can truly ever coexist? No. I really don't. I really don't because I think that the messaging that is out there or that needs to be out there or is created out there is going to be the most dynamic messaging. It's not going to be, it's not going to be the most helpful messaging. Yeah. I always say that, you know, as a.

a dietitian, someone who is bound to evidence-based practice to communicating science, I can't fight with sensationalism and magic. Like, I can't fight with these influencers. Like, I cannot possibly compete with messaging that is so extreme and sensational and magical and mystical. Like, yes, just take this pill and just do this one thing and everything's going to be better in your life. Because that's not the way that human bodies work. you know, not, certainly not on mass scale, but not even for the individual. It's all pretty basic stuff when it comes to moving the needle for good health. It's basic. And it's hard and it's basic. And that's even the creators of the show were like,

you know, the health professionals told us, you know, two pounds a week, maybe three pounds a week. And they blew those expectations out of the water. It's like, okay, but the health professionals told you this was healthy. But it meant nothing. But two pounds a week wouldn't have made great television. when it's boring i know we want to hit those double digits every week right so exactly yeah oh well this was such a fascinating conversation sky and and for those who are listening run to netflix right now to watch fit for tv it is such essential viewing for all of us and i really appreciate what you've done here and your time sky and i really look forward to see what you're working on next

because I love everything that you create. Thank you so much. It's been such a fun show to be on. I am so grateful for this interview and also Sky's incredible work on this docu-series, which I do feel comes at a time when we may need another strong cautionary tale of what we will go back to

if we let the current skinny talk era run loose. Now, we touched on the physical damage that the show did to the bodies of many contestants. So the stress fractures, torn ligaments, chronic pain, and in some cases permanent mobility issues, all of which were largely due to the extreme nature of their workouts and challenges. But perhaps the most prevailing and devastating outcome of the show was the rapid and dramatic weight regain. In fact, according to a 2016 NIH-funded Biggest Losers study, 40% of participants landed within 1% of their baseline weight or above, and 30% of them ended up heavier than their pre-show weight. And this certainly wasn't due to lack of trying. But rather, the tactics and timeline of their weight loss created an impossible set of conditions for weight maintenance.

namely that participants were burning 6 to 8,000 calories every day through exercise, eating less than 1,000 calories in fuel, and allegedly down in caffeine pills that the trainers suggested they take. Researchers in this landmark study found that this torturous protocol resulted in severe hunger hormone disruption, where their fullness hormone leptin remained severely depressed long after the show, So, in other words, even if they were to eat a normal amount of calories, it was literally impossible to feel full. And when they tested their resting metabolic rate, they were shocked to find that participants were burning 500 to 800 calories less than what would be expected for their body weight loss. In other words, just to maintain the level of weight loss that they

achieved on the show, they would have to maintain an already insane calorie deficit that they were put on, which again was impossible because of their injuries and their raging hunger hormones and also the fact that most probably didn't have eight hours a day to train. Plus, they would have to find a way to slash another 500 calories just to not gain it back. This is literally not compatible with life. As contestant Danny Cahill says, he felt like he was given a life sentence as he was already in the whole 800 calories

the moment he opened his eyes. Not surprisingly, over the years, many contestants have described developing or worsening depression, shame, anxiety, disordered eating, and full-blown eating disorders, along with a loss of identity as their body rapidly changed in both directions. Now, obviously, the biggest loser study is not a perfect study. There are many limitations. Never mind, it's a very extreme example of weight loss under extraordinary levels of duress and speed.

So obviously, when most folks lose a modest amount of weight, their metabolic rate decline is far less dramatic or dangerous. But it still does give us some insight into the dangers of weight loss protocols that you realistically cannot sustain for life. Ultimately, all of these effects underscore a central failure of shows like the biggest loser, where they promote a dangerously simplistic view of health while ignoring the complex long-term biology of the human body in response to deprivation. It wasn't just unsustainable, but for many contestants, it was deeply damaging. And again, I am so grateful for Sky and her team for bringing these issues back to light and directing such a critical piece of content with such empathy and care. We need

to learn from these mistakes before more bodies and lives are harmed through the relentless pursuit of extreme thinness at any and all costs. And on that note, that is all that I have for you today. I would love if you would leave a comment on this episode if you enjoy it and give me a follow wherever you get your podcast. But signing off with Science and Sass, I'm Abby Sharp. Thanks for listening. Thank you.