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The Biggest Liars Forget Survivor and The Amazing Race and all the other realty shows that feature generally good looking, physically fit people running around doing unusual things. In a nation of overstuffed couch potatoes, The Biggest Loser hits closer to real reality by combing the TV genre's outlandishness and greed with the more mundane goal of shedding unwanted body fat. With a $250,000 grand prize and dramatic stories of weight loss, this show is a natural for a nation composed of the overweight. More than 100,000 people apply to be apart of the series' success and take a shot at winning the grand prize. The show sheds light on the obese epidemic in America and promotes a positive message of change and hope; but are the producers behind this smash reality show being honest with America? The show runs for two hours on NBC on Tuesdays at 8 O'clock. It consists of video testimonials, game challenges, participant interactions, eating, working out and at the end the dreadful weigh-in. Each week one participant is sent home due to low weight lose and votes from their peers. I find the show to be entertaining and defiantly promoting a much needed message to America. However, NBC has tainted the show with half truths and whole lies by giving false information and hope to its' loyal viewers. The show allows viewers to see and perceive an altered version of the truth. Yes; the contestants are working out, dieting and losing weight but not in the manner that is showed in the video footage. Contestants are showed losing weight incredible amounts of weight in a seven day period strung out over a series of months that make for a remarkable weight lose story. The truth is these contestants are not losing their weight in the ideal set frame of time. The show depicts these contestants losing 10lbs each week, and showing the results week after week on network television. The audience viewers are lead to believe that after week one comes week two; the next episode, this is not true . Week two comes two or three weeks after week 1. These contestants appear to be losing large amounts of weight in consecutive weeks; the truth is these weeks of great weight lose are not consecutive. The show states it is only week two after a series of weeks passed from the said date of week one. So the producers lie about the time span, not that big of a deal, the contestants are still losing the weight right? Wrong. Even the amount of weight lost per alleged weeks are altered. The National Weight Science Foundation sates it took contestants of season 3 approximately 9 months to lose the said weight, compared to the 3 months that appeared in the show. The real Biggest Loser results can be downloaded from The Biggest Loser Results webpage on the National Weight Science Foundation. This sort of audience misleading can be seen as a form of Cinema Verite. Altering details to form a more entraining and compelling story in this case. Showing footage of a certain workout that did not contribute to that week's final weigh-in. Not showing weeks of weight gain or no lose. These decisions to include and exclude certain footage creates the perception that viewers experience and hide the nature of reality. Is this withholding of the truth considered lying? Would the truth hurt the ratings of the show? Or is Cinema Verite apart of reality TV? Whatever the answers may be, the producers at NBC feel that is is necessary to keep the truth away from the public. |
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