Yesterday, Perth education assistant and mother Lisa Hose was crowned the first female Biggest Loser in the Australian reality television show’s history. As a bonus, the winner, who lost a whopping 56.2kg, which was almost half her body weight (46.1%). She won double the prize money usually on offer - taking home $370,000 because she was the current holder of the special "money bracelet".

I really don't like this program because The Biggest Loser demonstrates that you can lose large amounts of weight and lead a healthier lifestyle without the help of surgery. That all it takes to achieve an optimal weight is hard work, sweat — and lots of tears.

What The Biggest Loser hasn’t been so successful at showing us is how to maintain this weight loss in the long run... I believe it is a carefully contrived fiction and an experiment in social conditioning.

If you give people enough money and put them into team environments, you can get them to do anything, even things that are painful and potentially harmful to their metabolisms. The contestants are not addressing lifestyle behaviors and eating habits that they need to change permanently, not just during a nine-week race.

This approach is similar to a fad diet, and we all know about them: You can lose weight on just about any diet, but when it’s over you gain the weight right back — unless you’ve changed your behaviors.. The Biggest Loser shows that:

Rapid weight-loss works
If you aren’t dropping double-digits each week, you’re somehow failing
The number on the scale is first and foremost
Eating well means depriving yourself (this resembles the crash diet mentality, something that isn’t realistic for your entire life)
Willpower is the answer to weight loss

This is crap TV and not in the interests of the health and welfare of young people.