Losing It with Jillian

This is my new favorite TV show, starring the trainer Jillian Michaels from "the Biggest Loser", who spends a week at home with a family that is in dire need of losing weight. Although somewhat melodramatic (like most reality TV these days), I am willingly hooked on the cathartic breakdown of the behavioral and emotional contributions to each family's obesity, followed by the rebuilding of self-confidence and self-worth that is both the catalyst and the product of their weight loss achievements. I very much respect that the host focuses on the psychological powers at work in each member's road to their current state of unhealth, and the psychological powers that carry them through their transformation. At no point in the show are calories counted or do diet regimens take the spotlight; the mentality of restriction that begets disordered eating and feelings of failure is not promoted. Rather, Jillian instills in these people the feeling that they deserve to eat better and to feel better, that they are capable of change, and that they are going to reap the benefits of their metamorphosis with new life and new health.

I will say that I am somewhat skeptical about what happens behind the scenes: each episode culminates with Jillian returning in 6 weeks to an "unveiling" of the weightloss that the family has achieved, and in every episode I have seen so far, each member has lost 30-60 pounds...Now most of them begin at 100-200 pounds overweight, so this drastic weightloss may be appropriate. But we do not see what diet or exercise plan the families have been following in this month and a half, so I cannot know that extreme restricting of food or excessive exercise is not practiced. It is definitely possible that this kind of weightloss is not sustainable or not achievable by the viewers who are motivated by their example of quick weightloss. But again, the example is not a quick-fix method for HOW to lose the weight, it is the instillment of motivation and empowerment for positive change in life.

At the very least this is one more public venue for discussing America's obesity epidemic, alongside other big-network shows "The Biggest Loser" and "Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution", as well as Michelle Obama's recent "Let's Move" campaign to reduce childhood obesity. The problem is wide-spread enough to merit such public attention, and it has only got to help the movement toward change, right?

You can watch all episodes of "Losing It" right now on Hulu.com