In a season unlike any other, NBC's "The Biggest Loser" takes on child obesity by featuring kid participants for the first time ever on the show, joining 15 fiercely determined adults eager to lose weight and change their lives forever. The focus for the three kids - 13-year-old baseball enthusiast Biingo, 16-year-old honors student Sunny, and 13-year-old former cheerleader Lindsay - will be on getting healthy rather than numbers on a scale, so they will not be eligible for elimination and will not weigh in on camera. They will work at both the ranch and at home, and their progress will be featured in every episode. New mother Jillian Michaels is also back, ready to whip contestants into shape with her tough-as-nails, no nonsense approach, alongside returning trainers and top fitness experts Bob Harper and Dolvett Quince. Contestants include a high school special education assistant and mother of four, a former college football player and the show's first openly gay contestant, who was bullied for both his weight and his sexuality when he came out at age 14.
Season 14 Episode 1 of The Biggest Loser resulted in a 0.00 rating in the 18-49 demographic.
The simple idea of The Biggest Loser, familiar to dieters the world over, is that "whomever loses the most... wins". Losing weight will be difficult, though, as the 12 contestants (six male and six female) will be faced with "real-life temptations" that their new "approved weight-loss skills and resources" should help them overcome - if they want to win, that is.
The twelve contestants will be divided into two teams of six, cleverly named the Blue team and the Red team. The teams will be mixed by gender and will be organized to be approximately equal in weight. Each team will then be assigned a "team trainer" to teach it individual fitness and nutrition regimens. According to NBC, one trainer has a tough 'boot camp' attitude while the other offers a much calmer approach yet remains strict and focused on results. So ... will the carrot or the stick work better?
The personal fitness trainers on The Biggest Loser will be Jillian Michaels and Bob Harper. Michaels' celebrity clientele includes entertainment mogul David Geffen, Amanda Peet, Vanessa Marcil, Amber Tamblyn, Sarah Paulson and Jeremy Renner. Harper is a consultant to trainers and teachers alike, and has trained such celebrities as Gwyneth Paltrow, Ben Stiller, Ellen DeGeneres, Melissa Etheridge, Guy Ritchie, Lauren Dern, Selma Blair, Jessica Alba and Dermot Mulroney.
To be sure that the contestants do not drop dead on the air from all the unaccustomed exercise, they will be under the supervision of off-camera medical experts, including Robert Huizenga, author of "You're OK, It's Just a Bruise", the book on which the feature film Any Given Sunday was based, and UCLA nutrition professor Dave Heber.
During each week's broadcast, the teams will face difficult and demanding daily work-outs culminating in a weekly competition in the form of a challenge, but the moment of truth will come during a weekly weigh-in. At the weigh-in, each team member will be weighed to determine the total pounds lost as a team. The team that loses the least amount of weight is faced with having to eliminate one of their own. In the end, the winner of The Biggest Loser walks away with $250,000 and a healthier body augmented by new coping skills.