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Stalker Diet Detective Ambushes Overweight Women For Reality TV Show

Yes, you heard right. There is a new show on We-TV that has many women (including myself) up in arms – It’s called I Want To Save Your Life. But what could be so bad about a show that wants to save lives? Well, it gives the impression it is a kind of “intervention” type show…but it’s really an attack on women who are overweight.

This show is wrong on so many levels that I barely know where to start. Below is a promo clip of this pathetic excuse for reality tv.

I did happen to see this show last week, and it was quite shocking. I think the worst part about it is how family members (in the case I saw it was the husband), basically “rat out” the women and allow this guy to stalk them and then confront them about their weight and diet on reality tv. I don’t know who is worse, the stalker nutritionist or the husband who rats out his wife?

This show would be a lot less revolting to me if the women were writing in asking for help on their own. But instead, they are being betrayed by the people that are suppose to love and support them unconditionally. It’s really very sad, not to mention HUMILIATING.

And to call it I Want To Save Your Life, really adds insult to injury. A better title might have been…

Honey, I think you’re FAT…So I’m going to humiliate you into going on a diet.

In the episode I saw, the (so called) lifesaving nutritionist/diet detective made the overweight woman go to the bakery and purchase a slice of her favorite chocolate cake. Then he made her hold it in a box while walking for over two hours in the hot sun. Is he freekin kidding? Not only did she have to walk off the calories in the cake, but she wasn’t even allowed to eat it (before or after the walk). It was more than a little cruel, not to mention totally unnecessary and degrading.

What are the producers of this show thinking?

From Fit & Healthy…

How Charles makes people lose weight – He uses some unconventional techniques to get his points across. “Most people think they know the caloric content of the foods they’re eating, but they don’t,” he says. That’s why he has one woman, Jennifer, walk for more than two hours while holding a piece of chocolate cake – the time it would take to burn those calories if she ate it – and then makes her clean a messy garage that has come to symbolize her cluttered mind-set.

Here is what other women bloggers are saying about this sorry excuse for television…

Jill at Feministe wrote…

Summary: White woman walks around town, sometimes eating unhealthy food (ice cream sundaes, etc). Thin white man follows her, and narrates his stalking — “I investigate people. I spy on them. I watch their every move. I dig through their lives. I look inside, so I can help them change the outside.” When she walks into her house, he’s there, with her husband — he introduces himself, and says, “I’m here to save your life.”

Because, you know, she’s fat.

From Miriam at Feministing…

First of all, this guy is like a stalker, following her around, monitoring her. He’s creepy beyond belief. Secondly, this once again, for the millionth time perpetuates the myth that everyone who is overweight is secretly and guilty sneaking ice cream sundaes. We should know by now that weight is much more complex than that. Thirdly, this shit is just sensationalist. I want to save your life? This woman does not look like she is at risk of dying because of a few extra pounds.

From Erin at lemondrop – Creepy Dud Stalks Overweight Women…

The premise? He stalks overweight women, catches them in the act of eating sundaes (’cause, you know, that’s what fatties do all day long) and infiltrates their lives via loved ones in order to save them from themselves. We think we just burned some calories thinking about kicking the crap out of this condescending little prick.

From Frances Ellen Speaks – Fat Girls, Beware!

But, of course, WE has sanitized the show by assuring the viewer that the degradation to women is all done in the name of healthy living. Oh, did I forget to mention the reason why these fat girls will be made to eat humble pie instead of apple pie? WE-TV is out to Save Their Lives. Yes, sir–it’s all about being altruistic. Thanks so much, WE.

Here is what Sarah from The Pursuit of Harpyness thinks about the nutrition stalker…

Platkin the superhero is providing a public service! What would women do if we didn’t have complete strangers to protect us from ourselves and our self-destructive choices? It’s just too dangerous to leave us in charge of what to put in or take out of our own bodies. I am all for teaching people healthy eating habits and encouraging balanced diets and regular exercise, but this is sensationalism.

Live from the Mothership – Anger-Induced Aneurysm…

It reinforces stereotypes about fat people and obesity. We see this woman eating a donut, some ice cream … she has cupcakes (Oh, god! The horror! Cupcakes!) in her cabinet. Would anyone think twice seeing a thin person eating a donut or ice cream or cupcakes? Would a thin person’s life need “saving” if they ate junk? Also, the ad implies that she’s fat because she just eats a lot of junk. It supports the hugely erroneous theory that fat people are fat because they eat worse and more than thin people. Not all fat people are gluttons. Body size isn’t much determined by eating habits. I’m not saying it doesn’t play a role, and that no fat people are fat because of what they eat, but for the most part, that theory is just a steaming pile of bullshit.

BlogHer Contributing Editor Laurie from Laurie Writes – I Want To Save Your Life (Fatass)…

I believe that America hates fat people. Hates. The vast majority of men here do not pursue overweight women. Many women judge each other to some degree based on appearance and body size. I occasionally, shamefully, think bad things about overweight people, and I AM ONE OF THEM. Call it projection, reflection, whatever, it is what it is.
. . .

The weight loss industry and culture is predicated, for the most part, upon people feeling like shit about themselves. It took me 20 years to cut through the bs and decide, to have a moment earlier this year, just about a month ago, actually, where I decided that I was concerned about how I felt and how I looked, and for whatever reason my head was in the right spot to do something about it.

This happened in spite of – IN SPITE, not BECAUSE – of the not-thin ex-boyfriend who tried to shame me into going to the gym on a regular basis and questioned my every move while I was there. Shouldn’t I be doing intervals and not stepping like I was? Shouldn’t I be lifting more? Shouldn’t I do more abs? This happened in spite of the countless times I know my weight has been judged in social situations (Overheard, of me and aforementioned frozen yogurt friend: “Look, there’s a big one and a little one.”) and the few times that comments were made directly to me about it.

Read Laurie’s full post on her struggles with food and weight here.

From Womanist Musings – It’s All Because You are Fat…

What would be lost if we stopped judging people based in appearance? I have been told that I spend far too much time dealing in probabilities or what should be, rather than the world that exists. As a disabled fat woman, how can I embrace a society that is determined to erase and shame my existence? Am I to love my oppressor in spite of the personal cost to myself? My disability is permanent and the resulting weight gain is probably permanent as well and therefore; to surrender is to allow someone else to decide my value and my worth. I do not wish to play “super crip” and rise above because being different does not have to mean less than if we all decide that all bodies matter.

Did you see this show? What did you think? Infuriating? Provocative? Stupid? Let us know in comments.

Also See:

Link to flicker that illustrates what BMI looks like on real people.