Your Fat Is Unequivocally Your Fault 2: Biggest Loser, Activists, and Loudmouthed Internet Shitbirds- I’d say “Fuck ‘Em”, But Who’d Want To?

Of all of the horrible dreck foisted upon the American public by television production companies, the worst of them is without question the paean to failure called The Biggest Loser.  No one, no matter how disconnected from society they are, can possibly be unaware of this circus sideshow of obesity, given its ubiquitousness around the world.  I found the fact that it’s a worldwide phenomenon to be rather surprising, given that it’s accepted as a matter of course that Americans are the sloppiest bunch of hamburger-guzzling, sloth-like gluttons on the planet, but our fatness has apparently spilled over into other countries, like a wheezing fat man’s gut over and under the armrest separating your chair from his on the airplane.  No fewer than 27 other countries and regions have aired this pathetic spectacle at some point, and America’s actually had two concurrent shows at once- one in English and one in Spanish.

My problems with the show are hardly the average litany of criticisms, as I am hardly the average man.  Most people find issue with the fact that the “poor” fatties on the show suffer while dehydrating themselves and subsisting on a starvation diet to win a game show.  Welcome to high school wrestling, big wide world- they’re not doing shit high school and collegiate wrestlers do as a matter of course.  Shit, powerlifters cut weight all the time, and there’s nothing but a medal at the end of the meet, rather than the Losers’ hundreds of thousands of dollars.

They bemoan the fact that two contestants were hospitalized after a 1 mile foot race.  A one mile foot race?  Those fat fucks should have been shot on the side of the road, as the laggards (rightly) were in the Kurt Russell epic Soldier.  If you cannot make it a fucking mile on foot and you’ve got two working legs, you should shuffle off your mortal coil- there is absolutely no excuse on Earth to be in that kind of shape, and if you’re in it, fucking die already.  You’re a disgrace even to a species that worships people like the Kardashians and who think that living under a fascist dictatorship is “safety”.

They claim that the show sets unrealistic expectations for weight loss.  We’re talking about a show wherein obese people go on hiatus from their jobs and train with trainers and have meals prepared by chefs and nutritionists while on a weight training vacation.  Did I mention they get paid on that vacation?  Well, they do.  Thus, they effectively have sponsorship while taking that weight training vacation.  How could that be anything but unrealistic?  Who on Earth, other than Marius Pudzianowski and Stan Efferding, can do that?  What could possibly be realistic about that.  Moreover, if you’re a fat person using that show for inspiration, you’ve already failed- there’s no pot of gold sitting at the end of your fatloss rainbow.  There’s just a lot of loose skin and a gremlin sitting on your shoulder screaming at you to eat Oreos.

They decry the fact that most of the contestants regain the weight they lost.  Welcome back to reality, people- that’s what fucking happens.  Apparently, the concept of a bodyfat set point is as elusive to most people as it is that a distinct and driving predilection to make shitty food choices and be a lazy piece of shit is how those assholes got fat in the first place.  If they didn’t care enough to do something about waistlines growing faster than the yeast infections between their sweaty thighs, they’re certainly not going to do something about their weight after they get off the show, either.  We’re talking about people who need a $300k carrot and a stick wielded by screaming trainers who chase them hither and yon 12 hours a day and direct their every move- without external motivation, those fatties are completely fucking useless.

Clearly, the world is missing the point entirely.  If anything, the show the Biggest Loser exists because it makes less fat people feel better about themselves, and most of America is fat as shit.  It’s a visual Xanax for fatties thinking of (rightly) blowing their brains out because they’ve failed to keep the machine that is their body in top working order.  You don’t see gearheads whining that the automotive makeovers common on stations that typically feature hunting and fishing are “unrealistic” because the people on those shows have unlimited time and resources to repair and refit hunks of junk.  That’s because they know it’s fantasy come to life, just like taking a 500 lb pile of dogshit and attempting to transform them into a productive member of society.  There’s a difference, however- the car played no part in it’s own destruction, whereas the fatties’ self-destruction is pointed, willful, and persistent.

Quite frankly, I have no idea how I have come across these things, but one blog has stood out as a bulwark of nonsense amidst all of the moaning about the fatties on the Biggest Loser- the ridiculously titled “Dances With Fat”.  This blog is the produce of a morbidly obese broad who champions the cause of “size acceptance” and rails against “fat discrimination”, two concepts that are as stupid as they are pointless.  Fat acceptance, for instance, violates a deeply ingrained cultural response to the obese that all of the whining in the world isn’t going to resolve- the Western World’s distaste for obesity.  There are three categories for social stigma, according to anthropologists and psychologists- tribal stigma, abominations of the body, and blemishes of physical character.  Over the last half a century  researchers have determined that obese people fall into the latter two categories, as they are considered “undesirable and physically unattractive”, and because their obesity is indicative of sloth and other moral failings in those around them (Carr).  There is little evidence, however, to suggest that these stigmas manifest in actual discriminatory action- people are too scared of being perceived as discriminatory to act on their distaste for land whales (Carr).  Instead, Carr argues, it is the Jabbas’ own self-loathing projected onto other people that leads them to believe that they are the victims of discrimination.  They literally hate themselves so much that they (rightly) think everyone else should as well.

“Size acceptance” is an equally pointless enterprise, as whining about how equal you are when all empirical evidence shows otherwise, and because heath care costs are rising due to the fact that the self-destructive lifestyles of homo sapiens hippopomus.  It’s one thing to have to dodge their ridiculous mechanical conveyances in Walmart because they’ve given up on walking and suffer behind them as they slowly trudge down an isle that they block completely with their bulk- it’s yet another to have to subsidize those things because they’re covered by Social Security and Medicare.  No one will accept a person’s willful attempts to inconvenience those around them because they lack the self control in the baked goods isle necessary to keep themselves to a svelte 299 lbs.

That said, the author of Dances With Fat recently railed against the current, horrifyingly disgusting season of The Biggest Loser.  For those of you who (blissfully) do not have that awful shit playing on the televisions in your gym nightly, this season has some of the whiniest fat kids you’ve ever seen making failed attempts to resemble their peers.  Not a moment goes by without complaint or tears, and 30 seconds into each episode you want to drag those fat fuckers to death behind your car blasting “Good Vibrations” from the radio and chugging a protein shake.  Never before have I been stronger in my resolve that we should just round up obese children and send them to the camps (in rail cars fit for cattle, as passenger cars would likely not withstand the strain created by their bulk), because if there’s anything worse than children, it’s whiny fat children in constant search of a Ring Ding while ostensibly well-intentioned people are trying to help them achieve their goals.  That’s right, each of these fat fuckers has delivered a tearful missive describing the horrors of being left out of kickball because they can’t run, or the shame of getting stuck on the slide.  The kids have explicitly stated that they want to lose weight, yet they bitch the entire goddamned time about the unfairness of having to diet and exercise.  I don’t know about you guys, but when I was a kid, I didn’t need to exercise, because I was constantly playing.  I ran everywhere, jumped off shit, rode my bike, and did the normal kid shit that keeps you from becoming a fat piece of shit.  If anything, the show’s a waste of time because those lazy little fuckers are incapable of enjoying physical activity.  Rather than chain them to a treadmill, it’d be easier to drive them to the long-term lot at the airport in a stolen car, shoot them in the back of the head, and leave the car there to be discovered months later.  No one will miss hearing those fucking kids cry, and we’ve saved ourselves the time and money of trying to resuscitate their fat asses when they keel over from a heart attack at age 30.

Dick Talens, who apparently is someone people on Reddit care about, insists that it’s not a lack of willpower that’s keeping that winter coat of fat on the good people at your local buffet, it’s that they’ve failed to create a positive feedback loop for themselves that spurs them on to “fitness”, something he apparently champions.  Frankly, I could give a fuck about “fitness”- it’s a throwaway blanket term to describe an ephemeral and subjective state of being.  In other words, making “fitness” your goal is fucking retarded.  In any event, he argues that the Biggest Loser is a terrible role model for the poor fat people of the world because it suggests that they should work really hard to achieve their goal, with the single-minded focus of a young Jeffrey Dahmer torturing his neighbor’s cat.  Heaven’s no!  Not hard work!  Anything but hard work!  What Talens fails to take into account when making his positive feedback loop is that the rewards must outweigh the costs for the fat slobs he champions, and that’s often not going to happen.  Giving up Oreos to some people is tantamount to the French Foreign Legion throwing down their weapons the second they entered the city limits of Camerone.  We’re talking about people whose entire existence is based upon the instant gratification they get from shitty foods and sloth- they’re not going to be satisfied with the incremental progression they might get if they can avoid too many dietary indiscretions while doing something they hate (i.e. exercising).

This, my friends, is because fatness is not caused by genetics, or environment, or bad parenting (unless the kid is really young).  It’s from failure.  A fat adult is a person whose life history is written on their body- they’ve failed.  They’ve failed themselves, they’ve failed their sexual partners, they’ve failed their children… fuck, they even fail their pets, because those fat motherfuckers aren’t taking their pooches on a needed 2 mile walk.  These are people who think “KFC Bowl” is a legitimate answer to the question “what’s for dinner?”  They’re the people who think a 40 inch waisted pair of jeans isn’t a horrifying prospect and who haven’t seen their genitalia without the aid of a mirror in years.  These, my friends, are unmitigated failures, and no amount of positive feedback loops are going to reverse the damage their failure has wrought- they will push those failures uphill for eternity, giant sloppy, Sisyphean sacks of cellulite rather than boulders, up a hill paved with Oreos and dried tears.

In summary, the Biggest Loser would only be acceptable entertainment if the contestants were constantly mocked and tormented with their favorite foods, all while the commentators for Most Extreme Challenge and Wipeout cracked jokes at the contestants’ collective expense.  Sadly, the show fails to account for the inherent hilarity in fat people running and jumping, and focuses more on their incessant weeping and complaints.  Since a Venn Diagram displaying the body types of the people featured on Hoarders and the people on the Biggest Loser would consist of a single circle, it might just be easier to drive around to their houses, shoot all of the occupants, and burn them to the ground.  Either way, fat people should shut the fuck up about their fatness and suffer the miserable lives they’ve chosen to live in silence or fucking do something about their fatness, also silently, and not on television.  As they likely will refuse to do so and claim they have one of the many genetic disorders they love to insist are the problem, I’ll just have to settle for mocking them in public and having a rage seizure every time Biggest Loser airs in the gym.

Here’s part one of the series if you’re interested.
Sources:
Carr D, Friedman MA.  Is obesity stigmatizing? Body weight, perceived discrimination, and psychological well-being in the United States.  J Health Soc Behav. 2005 Sep;46(3):244-59.