Last Tuesday was the season finale of The Biggest Loser, usually an episode of motivation and inspiration ending up being a little awkward for viewers. When Rachel Frederickson walked out to the awaiting viewers and contestants, she stunned the crowd with her weight loss. Immediately viewers took to twitter using #anorexic to describe Frederickson. Fans of Frederickson tweeted about how concerning it was that she looked so small and fragile.
People were commenting on the concerned faces of the trainers and mentioning how they looked shocked. Dolvett Quince, Rachel’s trainer, commented on her shocking weight loss with ” Rachel’s health is and always has been my main concern.” Jillian Michaels and Bob Harper, trainers on the biggest loser, did not have any comments regarding Rachel’s weight loss.
At the beginning of the season Rachel weighed 260 pounds. During her weight loss journey she was the front runner. Winning challenge after challenge and putting up big numbers every weigh-in. At the season finale she gained the title of “The Biggest Loser” with the largest percentage of weight loss to date. She lost 155 pounds almost 60% of her starting body weight. According to the BMI chart this puts her in the underweight zone.
In an interview with “Today” she stated she was very proud of her weight loss and followed the advice of the Biggest Loser medical team. Rachel was once a competitive swimmer, now she says that she has found the athlete that she thought she had lost. Rachel talked about her diet stating that she ate five small meals of “super healthy” food choices and no more than 1600 calories a day. Along with exercising at every opportunity that she could. Now with the title of Biggest Loser under her belt and $250,000 in her wallet she plans on trying to gain muscle and keep improving her physical fitness.
Do the Biggest Loser viewers have good reason to be concerned or are they over analyzing Rachel’s weight loss and jumping to conclusion that it was an unhealthy way to lose weight? Frederickson says that she did everything healthy according to the medical team and NBC released a statement saying “We remain committed to helping contestants achieve healthy weight loss and live healthier lifestyles, and to inspiring viewers to do the same.”