The Biggest Loser: Weight Loss Formatted Reality Television - Term Paper Example

Running Head: SOCIOLOGICAL PARADIGM The Biggest Loser: Weight loss formatted reality television that is a microcosm of society Introduction Weight loss is a major issue within the United States, creating an industry that has products with everything from sprinkle on appetite suppressants to athletic styled work-out videos. There are cookbooks, exercise equipment, surgeries, home ordered food programs, and entire sections of books on the topic of weight loss. Cashing in on the centralized focus of American’s on the issue of weight loss, the television program The Biggest Loser on NBC focuses on a weight loss competition that is intended to show the viewers that being more than 100 pounds overweight is not a permanent situation. One of the problems with being overweight is that it affects the social role that the individual must adapt to within society. One of the ways in which overweight people are typically not viewed is as an athletic individual. However, on the program The Biggest Loser, contestants are worked out at a level of an athlete, creating quick changes within their body and achieving status as healthy, physically fit individuals. This goal is accomplished through a competition that provides, not only a game element, but also the social dynamic of camaraderie for the shared experience. As the contestants are cut off from their families, they must not only compete with each other, but form relationships of support in order to get through the ordeal that they are put under. In order to examine the dynamics that are created within this example of reality television, the focus of this paper will be to put the program under examination from the point of view of the sociological paradigm analysis. In order to perform this analysis, three perspectives, structural functional, social conflict and symbolic interaction, will be examined in order to evaluate the culturally universal dynamics that exist within the competition. Social Conflict The central theme of The Biggest Loser is that people who are classified as morbidly obese compete for a monetary prize by remaining within the cast and avoiding being voted off during the season. They then manage to lose the most weight of the remaining contestants that are left at the end of the competition, either three or four depending on the season and their details of their ’surprises’ that the producers create to make the game fresh and interesting each season. The final contestant wins a monetary reward for having lost the most weight after battling against the dynamics of a competition that requires social skills in which to avoid being voted off of the competition. The competitors experience role strain within their positions as competitors as they must develop a game strategy that includes social interaction that builds relationships with their fellow competitors, all the while working towards both winning from an intellectual level and from a physical level. This requires a complex set of tools in order to survive the game. The sanctions that the competitors face are defined by the voting process that can see the individual voted out of the game for reasons varying from poor social skills to poor weight loss performance. Two of the most important tools that the competitors must use in order to survive the game are an external system of power and an internal system of power. The external resource of power that the competitor must successfully utilize is in the form of the trainers, Jillian Michaels and Bob Harper. These two trainers both lead and are used by the team members in order to achieve their goals. These trainers serve as a significant other to the players, a resource that is essential and central to the achievement of their goals. The internal power resource that the contestants must use in order to be successful in the game is their own sense of self discipline, which is usually not very high upon entering the game. However the pressure of the game provides incentives to stick to the program and succeed with their weight loss and game goals. It is the material culture that inspires most of the rewards of the game. The material culture supports the attractiveness and desirability of lower body weight, thus increasing the inspiration that contestants have for their goals. Structural Functional In order for the game to work, the structure of the game must be maintained and the rules of how it works have to be somewhat consistent, living up to the expectations of both the competitors and the viewing audience. There are at least four social structures that make up the overall dynamics of the game. The first structure is defined by the producers, for whom it can be said that the host of the show operates as their representative. Allison Sweeney, the current host, brings the new competitions and elements of the game to the contestants and represents what the creators of the show want to have happen within the game. She is responsible for delivering sanctions to the players when their performance affects their participation. The second sociological structure is found within the trainers and health professionals who take care of the competitors. Although they have advisory powers and some veto powers when the competitors are posing a risk to themselves, they have little direct control within the game. They appear to have no more information about the game itself than do the competitors and are surprised by many of the elements that the hostess brings to the game from the producers. The third sociological structure of the game is within the competitors who structure how they play the game by evaluating the rules and challenges that are given to them by both the producers and the trainers. Ultimately, they control the game because it is the choices they make within the framework that is given to them that will determine the direction of the game. Dysfunction within the game is minimized because the framework is designed with fail safes, such as health care and the ability of the producers to change an element of the game to direct the play, but ultimately the players are in conflict as they strive to control their existence within the game. The last structure, the most unpredictable but least powerful influence on the game itself, is the viewers who are in communication with the game through direct communications that can be accessed through NBC, but more commonly through their participation in watching the show, buying the products that have come from the show, and by providing conversation and dialogue that promotes the popularity of the show. A latent function is provided by the conversations and activities of this group because of the influence that viewer popularity has upon the success of the show. Therefore, producers will make changes due to the influences of this force. The manifest functions of each of these groups must work in harmony, even when competition is involved, in order for the program to be successful. The producers control, the trainers advise, the competitors advise, and the viewers form the critical body of the game. If any of these structures fail, the game itself will be affected, leaving a dissatisfying ending to the program. Symbolic Interaction Gender becomes a relevant issue within the game because of the biological differences that men and women face when confronting weight loss issues. Men typically seem to lose more weight at a much more rapid pace than will women. Therefore, the males on the program have an advantage that the females must find a way to overcome. As well, males develop athletically at a much quicker pace than do the females on the program, creating an uneven development of the relationship between work and achievement. Therefore, the women in the competition become symbolic of female viewers who find a sense of their own difficulties through the experiences of the women on the show. As well, both the competitors and the viewers find a reference group with whom they can relate. For the competitors, they find a specific group with which they can belong, a membership that provides support and success for the goals for which they have congregated on the show. The viewers find a group through voyeuristic habits that allows for the competitors to provide a sense of companionship to the viewers as their plights are relatable and sympathetic. Because of some of the unique aspects of the individuals who are in the competition, the camaraderie of others who go through these types of experiences provides a sense of commiseration for the effects of morbid obesity. One of the ways in which the game is unique is that while it is an athletic competition, it is also a social competition relying on the development of relationships in order to survive the first parts of the game. This often includes a development of ethics that the players define for themselves creating an expectation of the type of play to which the other members of the game will comply. There is often an expectation that no one will manage the game, gaining or losing weight in order to control the game. The social implications can be that the other contestants will develop a bad attitude towards a player who attempts to control the game through less than full efforts towards the weight loss goals when another strategy may prove useful. Losing the support of the other players often leads to losses in a vote as actions can have consequences within the game. Application The application of understanding The Biggest Loser through the sociological paradigm analysis is that the examples that are provided by the different structures through the structural function can be used as an example of many goal oriented endeavors. As well, the dynamics that develop through the social conflicts can be used to understand the ways in which social interaction is a complex system when competing against those with whom you must also develop a social relationship. Finally, the symbolic interaction of the competition is the representation that the game has for sociological interactions in society. The four elements of the structures, the controllers , the advisers, the participants, and the critics, are all representative of the structures one will find in society. The Biggest Loser can be appreciated for the example that it sets for sociological dynamics that are representative of modern society. Read More