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.
I was so happy to see your blog today about the Biggest Loser. I just hope that she doesn’t get into any trouble with the network or that they don’t make you pull this off of your site. People really need to see the truth behind these shows, although many people probably feel that the contestants actually deserve poor treatment (like some kind of punishment) just for being overweight.
How is it that we accept diversity in nature, but not among our own species? We can admire the trees. Some short and full, some tall and sparse. We can smile at all of those adorable cats and dogs. Some round and extra furry, some lean. ALL so cute!
I hope I live to see the day that people of all shapes and sizes are accepted equally. Thank you for your great work in moving toward this goal.
I find a lot of what she says to be hard to believe completely, everything is perspective. Almost all reality tv shows sequester contestants, and I just find it difficult to believe they’d just do that without clearly explaining what was going to happen. What would the point of no full disclosure really be?
As for the dehumanization… well, again, its perspective, and all hearsay. We have no idea if other contestants or people really said what she’s claiming. No one else that I know of has spoken out against the show, even those who have relapsed, so I think you would be wise to take the entire thing with a grain of salt. There are limits to what you can be ‘fined’ via a non-disclosure agreement.
Truth be known, if I was on the show, I’d dehydrate the day before weigh-ins too, but at some point, you have to rehydrate, so in the end the contestants are still losing weight, the dehydration is a zero sum win, but it might keep you there the first few weeks.
I think the show is dangerous in so much as their numbers are so unreal I fear what it does to those trying to be healthier and wondering why they can’t drop 5 – 7 – 12+ pounds a week.
I promoted a supplement. My sister is in the natural and organic industry and introduced me to better foods, vitamins and supplements. I believe that taking supplements and vitamins help in how I feel and in the type of foods I choose to eat and how I feel when I work out. Right now I am loving my Omega-33 and Glucosamine (forgive me if I spelled that wrong) because they seem to help with my joints and knees since I am training to complete a 200 mile relay with some other fellow “Losers.”
When I agreed to promote the supplement, it was only after my husband and I both tried it and felt that it added to healthy food choices in our diets. I also told the company that I refused to endorse anything that claimed to “take weight off fast” or any product that did not advocate an active life stye. When I signed on, I was told that the entire thing was going to be a mind, body, wellness type product. While I still believe that is how the product works best, when they chose to go another way with their marketing you will notice my name/face are no longer attached. My integrity means a lot to me, I have put my family in severe financial risk in order to keep my integrity. I did not throw that integrity away for some crazy weight loss money making scheme. What I signed on to represent was an all natural company with vitamins and supplements that intended to provide a holistic approach to a healthy life stye, however healthy may look to each individual. That company and I have parted ways due to the change in approach to marketing.
Wow, I had NO idea that they were that incredibly abusive to their contestants as I’m not really into most reality shows. I found it sad how she felt so dehumanized–but that can happen to all of us regardless of size. In fact, I slimmed down a good 25 pounds over a two year period (food diary/walking, and working on not eating emotionally as much–not a set “diet”) because I had pre-diabetes and hypertension, and I swear there is a woman in my office who is a little pear-y (but not really majorly heavy) who just looks daggers at me every time I walk by because she’s jealous that I slimmed down. Not a good feeling!
Thanks for the enlightening interview and I look forward to more. I’m also looking forward to your call tomorrow.
Thank you so much for sharing! These people who genuinely needed help losing weight was under mind control, they were conditioned into believing they’re were’nt human. What’s more appalling but unsurprising, is that this was aired on national television and the average American citizen didn’t see this as humiliating. I am so sorry Kai went through this, and it is about time someone spoke up about the mistreatment of peole in the mainstrem media.
When was she on the show? Caroline Rhea hasn’t been the host for many seasons??
@Michelle — She was on Season 3.
@notblueatall — Thanks for stopping by and for blogging about it!
@Nate — I agree with you that reality tv totally sucks. I just don’t think that everyone who watches it is aware of how badly they treat people. Also, I think that a show that purports to make people healthier should be called out for what they do.
@Marilyn — Thanks for stopping by and making me feel better about the couple of comments that I’m not posting!
@Em — Thanks for sharing too.
I love this! I even blogged about it and your blog: http://www.notblueatall.com/ Can’t wait to read the rest. Thanks for this!
Sorry, but they didn’t treat you subhuman because you were fat, they treated you subhuman because you were a reality TV show contestant. The whole point is to make you an emotional wreck — makes for more drama, which in turn makes for better TV, which is all that really matters from their point of view. And the idea of being upset because there are unflattering “before” pictures up of you hanging on the walls, when you voluntarily joined a show that is called The Biggest Loser, is just laughable.
I don’t like this show, I don’t like reality TV and I don’t like the way reality shows are made by manipulative producers, etc. But if you are going to make a major life decision like “Hey, I’m going to appear on a reality TV show,” you should at least educate yourself on how the show works and how the industry works. At the very least, have the guts to quit if the conditions are as bad as you say they are. Complaining afterward is a cop out.