Kai Hibbard, Biggest Loser Finalist
by Golda Poretsky, H.H.C.
www.bodylovewellness.com
A few months ago, I wrote yet another post on why The Biggest Loser is so bad for its contestants, the millions who watch the show, and the culture in general. I expected to see the usual comments from my usual readership.
What I didn’t expect to see was a comment from Season 3 Biggest Loser finalist, Kai Hibbard, saying how much she enjoyed my post and asking if we might speak.
Shortly thereafter, Kai and I spoke on the phone about her experiences on the Biggest Loser. From seeing her fellow contestants forced to workout with injuries against doctor’s orders, to the extreme dehydration prior to weigh-ins, to the resultant eating disorder that Kai still is working to heal, the story she told was nothing like the fantasy that the Biggest Loser seeks to promote.
I’ve held off on sharing this interview for the last few months, mainly because I have no journalism background and wasn’t quite sure how to present the material. But given that the Biggest Loser continues to be popular I felt that it was time to share our talk with all of you.
Because Kai’s story is so powerful in her own words, and because she has so much to share on the reality of this reality TV series, I’ve decided to break the interview into 3 parts, and give you the actual audio to listen to if you so desire.
So here goes with Part 1 of my interview with Kai Hibbard. By the way, part 2 is now available here. Part 3 is now available here.
Kai on the audition process:
“So I haven’t really talked about this because I’m not really supposed to. . . . So they put us in hotel rooms and they take your key away so you can’t leave. And you spend a week locked in a hotel room and if you want to go anywhere you have to call a production assistant to take you to get groceries or get dinner or whatever you might need. You also get loaded up in these vans with other possible contestants and you’re not allowed to speak when you’re in the van, with anybody, and then we had to go through these like doctor’s tests . . . . You get poked and prodded by complete strangers and nobody will tell you a single thing about what’s going on. And that point was where I really believe that the dehumanization process started, where they start teaching you that because you are overweight you are sub-human and you just start to believe it. Through the whole process, they just keep telling you, over and over, how lucky you are to be there. You’re being yelled at by people [whose] job is basically to keep the ‘fat people’ in line and you start to believe it.”
“They reminded you almost daily that you were supposedly lucky to be there and you got that for, gosh, I was on that ranch for 3 months so I heard for 3 months how lucky I was to be there and, let me tell you, my feet were bleeding, I was covered in bruises, I was beat up, but boy, I kept hearing about how lucky I was to be there.”
On the seclusion of the ranch:
“A lot of people don’t know that once we were actually on the ranch, it was 6 weeks before we were allowed to get mail from home and our mail was opened and censored. And it was 8 weeks before we were allowed to speak to anybody on the phone and it was for 5 minutes at a time with a chaperone.”
On the meaning of a “week” on the Biggest Loser:
“It varied. It went from 14 days and I believe that near the end we had one week that was 5 days.”
On then-host Caroline Rhea’s reaction to the blown up “before” pictures located throughout the ranch:
“She walked and she saw the photos of us that were shot deliberately to make us look as poorly as possible hanging up around the house and she lost it. She lost it on the crew and she demanded that they take them down and that it was humiliating. [She said that] we were people and should be treated as people.”
On being treated as “an expendable commodity”:
“We did one challenge in a stadium in California. It was about 100 degrees that day and the challenge involved running up stairs and then doing the wave all the way around the stadium and then running down the stairs and back across the football field. When we were done, we were obviously covered in sweat, we were all out of shape, and that was a really hard challenge in that heat. They brought us bottles of water that we had packed ourselves in the truck that had been sitting in the heat all day, and they broke out coolers for the trainers, the cameramen, the audio people, and for Caroline Rhea and they had cool water and we drank 90 degree water after we ran the challenge. . . . And actually one of the contestants, Eric, from New York (won my season) lost it at that point and screamed about how we weren’t animals and to please stop treating us like animals and they handled it the way they handled us always, [they] quieted him down, and reminded him how lucky we were to be there, that it was saving his life.“
On the way contestants (and viewers) are brainwashed into believing that fat people are subhuman:
“I believe that . . . most of the contestants, felt like it was okay to treat us like we were subhuman when we were there, that the ends justify the means. If they were going to make us thin, then it was totally worth it to humiliate us and treat us poorly all the way along. I just don’t feel that way.”
Click here to listen to the first portion of my interview with Kai.
Next week, hear about the real Biggest Loser diet and exercise plan, what happens when the finalists leave the ranch to lose more weight, and how what she learned on the ranch led Kai into a full-on eating disorder. Also, find out why other contestants never seem to speak out like Kai has.
You can now read and listen to part 2 here and part 3 here.
Golda is a certified holistic health counselor and founder of Body Love Wellness, a program designed for plus-sized women who are fed up with dieting and want support to stop obsessing about food and weight. To learn more about Golda and her work, click here.
Thank you, Kai, for breaking the silence (and the gag order!). However, I hope you will *STOP* advocating weight-loss goals. They’re always harmful. For individuals who participate and for the rest of us who have to live in the fat-hating world they create.
Good work, Golda! In journalism school, they tell you you’re not doing your job properly if you don’t occasionally get a death threat. Wheee!
It’s really hard to dismiss Kai’s story as “sour grapes” because none of us experienced The Biggest Loser for ourselves. I think it’s very brave of her to speak out about the mistreatment she claims to have suffered, but as someone pointed out before, it was all voluntary.
When you seek adventure, you seek risk. I think it’s helpful to remember that her main reasons for joining the show were to experience something different from her daily life and perhaps even challenge herself a bit. Just because her best friend sold her on the idea that she would do well on the show wasn’t a guarantee that it would be easy or fair. In my opinion, one of the clearest messages the show promotes is that the journey of long-term weight-loss is neither easy nor fair. That said, I’m not blaming Kai for “getting what she signed up for” because I do believe the people working for the show should have taken some responsibility for how they treat other humans (I personally wouldn’t work for a show like that). Overall though, I think it’s ineffective to blame an entire show for the decisions of a few drama-hungry network executives.
So, I guess what I’m trying to say is that it’s unfortunate but not totally unexpected. I also think anyone watching the show knows that the contestants aren’t spending 3-4 months at a bed & breakfast. But what I hope readers remember is that what one person might see as de-humanizing, another might see as confirmation that their struggles will make them stronger, wiser, and more appreciative of life. Perspective is everything.
All in all, a great article. Anything that sparks this much debate is worth considering. Thanks for sharing!
I’m happy to see this. The show is a circus – humiliating and demoralizing. Losing weight to be physically healthier is important for a lot of people, yes. But the psychological viewpoint of equating weight loss with attaining “worthiness” is terrible and frightening, and unfortunately – highly prevalent. Weight is not a moral issue. People should be treated with dignity, respect, compassion and basic humanity.
WOW! This article is really, really good and thanks for including the audio. Can I download it to listen to later?
But getting back to the article, I am glad that an actual contestant had the guts to come forward and talk about what she went through and it is probably a big reason that Eric regained his weight. I know he was back on either this past season or the one coming up, but I chose not to watch this last one. Anyway, people get a really skewed idea of what its like to not only lose weight, but lose it publically, on a reality show. Losing weight itself is not the easiest thing to do, so just imagine having to do it where millions of people are watching and following and wishing they were in your place, because they can’t seem to do it on their own either. All the advertising and media focus that go on behind the scenes go into making this show a super powerhouse for changing your life. However, it is still a show. I watch it and I do like it, for the revelations and changes it brings to contestants and for entertainment. Personally, I don’t believe that you have to humiliate people in order to make them want to lose weight. I don’t do that to my clients and they get along just fine AND achieve great successes.
I’ve only seen part of one episode – it felt very uncomfortable – a bit like watching weight-loss porn – now I know why.
Thanks for sharing this!
@Deb. “Weight loss porn” is a brilliant term!
I have not listened to the entire interview as of yet.
I understand you are interviewing Kai because of her BL experience. But what I don’t understand is the information on her blog. She is is “pushing” a weight loss product. Did you ask her about why she is involved with a weight loss product? It is contradictory with the HAES movement knowing all we know about the claims of so called “weight loss” products.
@Patti, I didn’t ask her about why she’s promoting a weight loss product because I wasn’t all that interested, and didn’t want that to be the focus of the interview. Her journey with that is her journey. I just really wanted to know, and to share with my readers, what really happens on BL, because of the way it’s touted as a great show where contestants “get healthy”, while the reality of it is so far from the way it’s promoted.
Keep up the good work, Golda! I think we’re long overdue for a new paradigm with regards to weight loss and loving our bodies. I happened to watch this show for a few minutes last night and I had to change the channel because the way the contestants are treated is so dehumanizing. That’s the message, you’re fat so you deserve to be treated like crap and to suffer your way to a thin body.
@Patricia, thanks for your support! I totally agree. You can’t watch these shows anymore unless you buy into the idea that people deserve to be treated like crap. I’m glad that Kai was willing to speak up so that we could talk about this.
This is not exactly breaking news — Kai has given numerous interviews. Sounds like sour grapes to me. Most of the other former contestants have a lot of good things to say about their experience.
First off, this interview ignores the part where Kai willingly applied and went through an extensive interview process to get on the show. Then, the week in the hotel room is called sequestering and is a legitimate part of the interview process used by many reality TV shows. Some contestants actually enjoy it.
As for the seclusion on the ranch and lack of mail, anybody who watches the show knows about it. I get the impression that many of those who trash talk the show haven’t actually watched it.
The lack of cold water after the challenge — was that an oversight or a plot? The contestants are very closely monitored by doctors and I don’t think they want them to drop dead. That wouldn’t be very good for ratings.
I’m sure that the next part of the interview will talk about how contestants wore plastic trash bags to lose water weight before weigh-ins. Please do your research and know that the show is now better monitoring contestants to prevent that kind of cheating.
Also, I’m sure the subject of non-disclosure agreements will also come up — again, very common in reality television.
@Me — I think the other contestants have good things to say because they’re afraid of facing million dollar fines. Also, she had never watched the show so she didn’t know about the lack of contact with the outside world and apparently wasn’t warned about it. The next part of the interview doesn’t talk about plastic bags, FYI. It talks about how they learned to dehydrate themselves from people who were actually supposed to watch out for their welfare.
Also, the fact that non-disclosure agreements are common in reality television doesn’t make them acceptable or fair. Your willingness to dismiss poor treatment of human being in such a blase manner is rather shocking.
@Ann, the penalties for speaking out are extraordinary. I know she’s shilling for a weight loss drug now, so I specifically didn’t focus on it in the interview. To her credit, she didn’t bring it up either. I think she just really wants her side of the story to get out there.
@PJ, I know. I think that’s why they have the contestants sign such hefty contracts. I would love someone to test the legality of all of it too. Kai never had the opportunity to have a lawyer look at the contracts, and I’m sure her experience isn’t rare. Seriously, part 2 of the interview is even crazier.
@Em, you’re welcome!
@Cathy, the trainers consistently ignored medical advice, as you’ll learn next week. They also don’t know before they go on the show that they will be so isolated nor treated so poorly. How can they know when no one is speaking out about it? And why aren’t you willing to blame a show for how it treats contestants?
Good post and very brave of Kai to speak out. I know that the contestants sign confidentiality agreements with high financial penalties, but no one else has spoken out (except a bit from Jillian). Kai, however is now shilling for a weight loss drug. That doesn’t seem like a good trade to me. Perhaps some of the shame BL taught her hasn’t shaken off.