Back, And Bigger Than Ever

Deem it caring or cruel, The Biggest Loser polarises viewers. By Bridget McManus.

ON A COLD Sydney morning, 13 very overweight men and women clad in unforgivingly tight gym clothes pace a minimalist living room waiting to be called on set. They look nervous - and no wonder. They know they are about to face a gruelling workout that will be accompanied by the sort of ritual humiliation that even the army has been forced to stamp out. And it will all be screened on national television in the latest series of the reality hit The Biggest Loser.

It is the sort of exposure that most people would rank as their worst nightmare, but each of these contestants regards him or herself as lucky to have been selected. Why do they do it? Who would undergo three months of enforced isolation, perhaps from a young family, to suffer the programs infamous indignities?

The contestants have many reasons but mostly they speak of the opportunity that the show offers to transform them into slim, happy people. "I just want to meet someone and I feel like my weights the one thing stopping me," says Sam Birrell, 37, a beautician from Geelong.

Birrell and the 12 other contestants will spend three months living in the "White House", a McMansion-style house north of Sydney, where they compete to lose the biggest percentage of weight among their fellow entrants - for a prize of $200,000 - as the nation looks on.

The program stipulates a harsh regimen that has earned the ire of health professionals. The contestants rise early from single beds, where they sleep three or four to mixed-gender rooms, train four hours a day in the gymnasium, perform gruelling "challenges", sometimes in public places, resist food "temptations", make video diaries to vent their frustrations, and eat nothing that isnt placed in their individual coolbox each morning by a nutritionist.

They constantly pass window displays of their dream outfits, mounted around the upstairs stairwell, and plates of the glazed, rotting remains of their (previously) favourite food encased in a glass cabinet downstairs.

The competition is as tough mentally as it is physically. Just days into filming, a 24-year-old woman walked out, a first for the Biggest Loser franchise. And one of the remaining contestants has been forced to withdraw after twice being hospitalised.

To ensure total focus on the task at hand - and to allow for maximum emotional dynamics - the contestants are forbidden any contact with the outside world. "Its about getting total isolation so that they really put their life in their trainers hands, and as a community they have to bond," says executive producer Carl Fennessy.

"The contestants say, I would give my right arm, literally, to get three months away from all the pressures of my life. So we dont do it to be cruel, we do it to build their willpower, their resolve, to remove all the clutter from their lives."

"I think (isolation) is one of the tactics, absolutely," says Birrell. "They get more emotion from us if we dont have an outlet to say to your sister, She gives me the shits and so forth."

When Green Guide visited the White House late last year, Jules Condon, 34, a psychology student from Queensland, knew she would not be home for Christmas with her children, Gavin, 8, who has Down syndrome, Corey, 6, and Amy, 2, because she would be filming The Biggest Loser. She applied because she felt unable to change her lifestyle and feared for her life, after her husband died suddenly.

"I left the children videos of me talking to them and telling them to go to bed and its all OK," she says. "Because my husband passed away, I worried that the children might have thought that Id died and wasnt coming back. I know theyre going to watch me on TV but it was time to do something about my weight because I didnt want them to live a life of weight problems."

Kelly Donaghy Lewis, 28, a NSW police detective, is also missing her children, Jack, 9, and Thomas, 3. "Ive got a bear and my boys have got a bear and you turn it on and it sings a lullaby, and I said well do it every night at eight oclock, and with the schedule here sometimes I havent been able to and Ive thought, Oh no! Ive got to go and put my bear on."

In the weeks before filming started, Donaghy Lewis life took a dramatic turn. She caught her husband, also in the police force, having an affair with a colleague, and threw him out.

"I know Ive put on 45-50 kilos since I met him (but) I still dont think that was an excuse. I knew when I met (her husbands lover) that she liked my husband and hes very attractive and tall. He used to say to me, Youre just self-conscious because youre overweight and shes not and shes a good sort. Shes been saying nasty things at work about me being on this show, like, Why does everybody feel sorry for her? Shes a fat slob and she let herself go. How could she expect to stay with a good-looking husband?

"My mum hasnt spoken to my ex-husband since our separation and I tried to get them to a round-table discussion because I didnt want any tension, but that didnt happen. I just wish they could ring and say, the boys are OK, theyve done this, this week."

The policewoman may get her wish if she wins a "challenge" or resists a "temptation" down the track. Prizes for individual effort can include a phone call or a video message from loved ones.

CHANNEL Ten took a punt on the shows Australian format last year, giving that first local series a prime-time weeknight timeslot, 7pm, five nights a week, for a three-month run. The US weekly version had already been shown here but the local extended version promised more tears and tantrums.

"Theres a lot more soul in this show than the US version," says Fennessy. "We looked at the US show and saw that there was a lot more meat on the bones that they werent getting.

The US show tends to be all choreographed scenes and then the credits roll. You dont see the human experiences. You dont see the moment when they broke down in the corner and cried because they were missing their kids. Ten was looking for a 7pm strip show (a program that runs in a habitual timeslot) and they didnt want a game show or a classic Home and Away-style drama and this is almost like a real-life soap. We hoped like hell it was going to work."

The gamble paid off and The Biggest Loser became one of Tens top-rating shows for the year, pulling a weekly average of 1.2 million viewers nationally. (The series finale had 2.3 million viewers.) More than 10,000 people across the country applied for the 2007 series, about 2000 more than last year.

The profiles of the chosen 13 certainly offer scope for real-life soap opera.

Alex Tsao, 37, a Chinese-Malaysian chef who runs a Mongolian restaurant in Melbourne, says his wife left with his children because she "went off him". Patti Singe, 26, is a Torres Strait Islander who wants to set a better example for her nephews and nieces. Courtney Jackson, 21, a gay mobile-phone salesman from Queensland, wants to be able to "buy fashionable clothes off the rack and go out clubbing and dance all night without wobbling".

Then there is Damien Wicks, 34, a musician from Darwin. If his life wasnt threatened by a weight problem (at 216.5 kilograms, he is the shows largest-ever contestant), it would seem charmed. He plays in a popular cover band, is a well-loved figure about town, and has a loving, skinny girlfriend. "Every day I just look in the mirror and I think, Ive got to do something about it and I just have a hard time pulling my finger out," he says.

Gerard Fleischer, 43, from Western Australia, believes his wife left him because of his size and used to be embarrassed about being with him in public. He is raising two teenage sons.

Mel Russell, 24, a magazine advertising co-ordinator from Sydney - who perhaps stands the best chance of emerging butterfly-style, like former Loser Fiona Falkiner (who went on to compete in Dancing with the Stars) - feels that by being tall, having red hair and being overweight, fate has served her a triple whammy. "I do hope this will boost my career. I mean, I was in a bottom-level job coming out of uni and anything that can spring from this would be fantastic," she says.

Others fiercely deny any quest for fame, however fleeting.

"They keep saying no one from the last show went back to their old jobs," says Donaghy Lewis. "I wouldnt mind doing part-time but Im meant to be a detective and I love working in child protection. Im sure Ill get hate mail from Silverwater jail once this goes on TV. I dont care, I feel like Im in prison here actually."

Michelle Bridges, who joins the new series as one of two extra trainers, says she "never had any designs on being on television. It makes me quite ill, a bit nervous, but I go back to my goal and I think, god, what an opportunity to get my message out to so many people."

Condon says: "I thought about dropping it after the auditions because I felt uncomfortable about sharing my life with the nation. And my mum said to me, No, youve got to take the opportunity. If you can get your story out there you might save some other family from going through what youve been through.. And I thought, Thats true. There arent enough people out there who realise that theyre a ticking time bomb waiting to go off.. My husband died when he was 31 and I just wish wed known."

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