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« Is It Just Me?
Does The Biggest Loser Really Care?
This season producers behind NBC’s calorie-counting hit have nobly pledged to help save the environment by reducing the number of plastic disposable water bottles they contribute to landfills. It’s a great idea tainted by the fact that they’re doing it by "partnering" with an advertiser who sells the water filters and reusable water bottles that all the BL5 contestants carry on air. (Hello, major product placement.) They call their initiative “Filter For Good.” And, if you want to get in on the green action, you’ve got to pay $10 for the new bottle or $20 or more for the filter or a pitcher. Now, I’m probably being nitpicky here. But, if the folks behind The Biggest Loser truly, truly cared, wouldn’t they give away thousands of free bottles or at least offer more than a coupon for a few bucks off. I know, I know. They’re trying to do something good. But a lot of shows talk about how they want to help you go green when what they really want is for you to help fill their pockets with green by buying the new light bulb, cotton bag or [try not to laugh] less-gas-guzzling SUV. And yes, there’s nothing wrong with making a little money and if I don’t like it I should just quit this show. But I can’t. Try as I may, I just can’t seem to break up with Loser, because despite all the things that annoy me, it does do a lot of good. People lose inspirational amounts of weight on this show. So much so that I keep forgetting that watching The Biggest Loser is not the same as actually doing something healthy and that tuning into this show won’t change what I see on my scale.
My Week in Reality TV
Sunday 12.30.07: The Amazing Race 12
Say farewell to America’s favorite Goths. Kynt and Vyxsin got really lost in Italy last week and they just couldn’t recover in India. Still, this was a great episode—it came down to the wire between Nate and Jen and “The Pinks” who went out swinging. Kynt and Vyxsin were the first to find the classified ad clue and they rocked the yoga speed bump. But then they blew it when 1.) They U-turned Gramps and Nick instead of Nate and Jen. And 2.) Kynt had to go back to retrieve the right gas receipts. (This came after he tried to be shady by leaving the elevator door open so Jen couldn’t use it.) Bummer. Now I’m left with teams that alternately annoy or bore me.
Monday 12.31.07: New Year’s Eve countdowns— Dressed like a Goth Bjork, Tila Tequila made me lose my dinner—I mean, uh, faith in the reality TV love connection—when she announced during her MTV New Year’s Eve Masquerade that she and Bobby have broken up and she will be looking for a new match in a second season of her show. Great.
Speaking of New Year’s Eve shows… How many more networks can cram into the tiny radius that is Times Square? Fox, MTV, and NBC had one. And of course ABC rolled Dick Clark out for another New Year’s Rockin Eve. It was funny. All the networks were basically shooting the same crowd. And their poor sound guys must’ve been going crazy editing out the noise from competitors’ concerts. At one point, me and Zeke channel surfed over to Univision and it looked like El Gordo and La Flaca were broadcasting from a rooftop desperately looking down onto the Times Square crowd, it cracked us up and out of our flu-induced stupors.
Tuesday, January 1, 2008: The Biggest Loser 5
Yes, three more things on BL.
1.) At a glance the color on my TV makes it difficult to tell the difference between the Purple and Blue teams. Both shirts look blue. Does this happen to anyone else?
2.) That race where the teams had to run what seemed like a mile or two while towing hot air balloons looked hard—and impressive. Could I tow the helium equivalent of my own and Zeke’s body weight in race? Probably. But not at a respectable clip.
3.) Is it wrong that I cheered a little when Maggie and Jenn, the youngest players came in last during the race?
Wednesday, January 2, 2008: Make Me a Supermodel Casting Special
“You have to FEEL the clothes you’re wearing,” Tyson advised the wannabe models. And he was serious as a heart attack. Not that the world needs a show where viewers vote for people who want to make a living off their looks. But here’s a quick recap Tyson Beckford (Mr. Tyra), Nikki Taylor and co. narrowed the pretty pool down from “hundreds” to 35 and then to 14. (“Sex” the delusional rhythm-less fool from the So You Think You Can Dance auditions was among the early rejectees.) Actually, online voters picked two of the final 14 months ago—which was sketchy-sketch-sketch. How can you be a fan of show that hasn’t debuted yet? I’ll have to look into that. But anyway, though the show doesn’t officially start until next week, there’s already an early judge favorite —Jackie Hydock, a pretty, super-confident and friendly girl from Ohio. But my favorite is Perry, the “messy, demanding and inpatient,” soldier-looking guy who flirted with Nikki and somehow managed to make himself seem taken and available at the same time. (He mentioned his girlfriend repeatedly but then did something gorgeous that would make you forget.)
Thursday, January 3, 2008: Celebrity Apprentice
I watched this off-and-on while at the gym. From what I could tell, Omarosa’s back to her old bitchy ways. Although she might have had a point when she told her team not to bank on their so-called celebrity to sell hotdogs. Of course she might have also been jealous that even the Playboy model has a higher profile than she does. But who knows? Not that it mattered. The sub-lebrities basically called up their rich friends to make ridiculous sales during the hotdog stand challenge. I know it’s for charity but there’s nothing entertaining about watching someone pay $10,000 hot dog and a $5000 bottle of water. I don’t care if Gene Simmons is naked while selling it. But, again, that’s just from what I could tell. I was busy trying to outpace and outlast the guy on the crossramp/eliptical thing next to mine. I just switched to a new gym and no-cardio mister let my fat fool him into thinking he was doing all right as long as he was moving faster than the big girl. I hate when people do that. So, when I saw him look at my machine then increase his difficulty level and speed to match mine, I picked up the pace. Then he picked up the pace. Then I picked it up and found myself gripping the bars trying to maintain 165 RPM uphill. (Gym rats know that’s slow for runners but fast for me.) Thank God he tapped out after 15 minutes because I would not have lasted 20 minutes, let alone 30 at that pace.
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Jan 4, 2008 6:44 PM
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Can someone explain to me how these "reusable" water bottles work as opposed to the "desposable" ones? I don't watch the show, so I don't understand the concept of these special, specifically resuable bottles. Where I'm from, we just take the water bottle (or soda bottle) rinse it out good and refill it with tab water; why is that so hard? If it's a whole big thing about drinking tap water or whatever, there are water filters that attatch to the tap, some that I don't think need filters, and they're good for general drinking use.
One thing we do often around here, is take the bottle, fill it half way or so with water, stick it in the freezer so when you want a cold bottle of water, you just take it out, fill it the rest of the way and you've got ice water.
Ah, but then people wouldn't waste money on stuff they don't need.....
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Jan 5, 2008 11:48 AM
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Rochelle, your argument could just as easily be turned around to something like, "If people really cared about saving the environment, spending a few dollars to buy a reusable water bottle is a small investment." I'm just bemused as to why it's companies responsibility to foot the bill for the environmental movement. Activists have been harping for years about what we have to do and the sacrifices we have to make. Well, all those "great" ideas -- compact light bulbs, cloth grocery bags, etc. -- come with a price, literal and figurative. The test will be whether people are willing to pay those prices or if "saving the environment" is all a lot of transient feel-good talk, no real action.
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Jan 5, 2008 12:38 PM
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stargazer, there are worries that the disposable plastic bottles leach dangerous chemicals into the water if used to many times. Also the possibility of bacteria buildup, if the bottles are not washed properly between uses.
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Jan 5, 2008 7:22 PM
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I'm sure it's much cheaper to buy a sport water bottle and wash and reuse it than the ones that Brita was offering. My mom wanted one, saw the price and decided against it. We already have a bunch of them as it is.
But, I agree with the color of the t-shirts. When we were watching the show, we couldn't figure out if that purple really WAS purple.
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Jan 6, 2008 4:38 PM
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bowlby4, if that's true about the chemicals in plastic bottles, then there needs to be a change in how those sort of products are made. There's absolutely no reason people shouldn't be able to reuse those bottles like that; it accomplishes the same thing without break our wallets.
I don't know what to say about people not cleaning out their bottles good enough afterwards; it shouldn't be much more difficult that anything else one eats our drinks out of, that gets cleaned and reused.
As for the argument of the vallue of our planet virsus the cost of the product; it can't be one or the other, 'cause guess what, our system doesn't always facilitate people to make the better choices, even if we want to, if it means it's going to cost more. It's a broken system, but it's all we have at the moment.
To say that I'm over weight is an understatement, but something I was thinking about just the other day, is the fact that, while in theory I would like to eat healthier, I can't afford the foods that are healthier than what I do eat. I'm on a tight enough budget as it is and have a hard enough time buying the food I do buy, so when I do go grocery shoping, I get the food that's either the cheapest or can be stretched out over a longer of period of time and essentially cost me less in the long run.
I've recently found that I can get a 32 oz log of beef summer sausae for $6, but I can make it last for 2 weeks; wheras a Lean Quisine meal, which I do like, but at it's cheapest on sale, is about $2, but only lasts me for one meal.
So while it may be better for the enviroment, I litterally can't afford that kind of extra spending. And why should I, when I should be able to get the extact same results for nothing (sans the utility costs for water, which is negligible.)
And it's not like I just toss the bottles out; if I've finished with something I'm fairly certain can be recycled, I make sure it goes in one of our recycling bins (we have several through out our house, and I keep one in my home office, near my desk, so I can toss that stuff right in there) I even toss the caps in there too, considering they're plastic also; I don't see why can't be recycled, I make sure they're not skrewed onto the bottles.
Something I've done for a couple of years now, since I gave up caffeine and soda for the most part; I have two plastic, gallon jugs (both initially water jugs) which I regularly refill with water and keep in my fridge so I can refill my large 32 oz glass whenever I need.
I shouldn't have to worry about health risks just drinking my water, in a healthy, eccinomical and green way.
If these chemicals can become an issue after multiple uses, what's to say they couldn't leach into the water or whatever liquid they contain, in the midst of it's initial use? If there's even the slightest risk of that, I'd say that needs to change, 'cause that just seems like a public safety hazard and I have a hard time believing something like that would go unchecked.
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Jan 7, 2008 12:03 AM
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stargazer, if you go with prepackaged foods, you'll go broke trying to be healthy. However, if you go to the end of the store, you'll find the produce department, which generally has food that is both cheaper and healthier.
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Jan 7, 2008 3:04 PM
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I try to by my share of fruits and veggies, mostly the former, but they aren't cheap either, especially when they're out of season like now.
Not to mention that fruits and vegetables can only go so far, I'm sure vegetarians would disagree, but I can't make entire meals out of veggies. Most green vegetables truly do not agree with me; they either pass right through me or physically make me sick.
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Jan 8, 2008 3:30 PM
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I know this is an old article at this point and I don't know where this would come up if it could be bumped up or if anyone will read it now, but I just saw a video report on Yahoo! about this very issue and I remembered this post from a couple of weeks ago.
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=3906861&cl=6177857&ch=4226723&src=news
According to this, it's only hard plastics that leach the chemical that is potentially, theoretically dangerous, to children.
And as they show in there, by hard plastic, they mean baby bottles and reusable water bottles.
I don't know what the original article was talking about, but as far as I what I meant by washing out water bottles, are the ones you buy at the store and toss; washing them out and reusing. Those and soda bottles. I see no reason to spend the kind of money mentioned in the original article in the name of "being green", when easier, cheaper methods of doing exactly the same thing are available.
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Jan 30, 2008 3:27 PM
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I have to agree when they annouced about the water bottles onthe biggest loser we thought they were going to give away a certain amount of free ones. But than when we went to the site we found out differently.
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Feb 11, 2008 4:59 PM
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