“Really offensive, frankly”- Fit for TV: The Reality of the Biggest Loser star Jennifer describes the atrocities of the show

Fit for TV: The Reality of the Biggest Loser was released on Netflix on August 15, 2025. It saw the contestants of the popular reality TV show, The Biggest Loser, ousting the atrocious ways the makers made them lose weight. The host of the show, Bob Harper, also featured on the Netflix docuseries and defended some aspects of the weight-loss show. 

Jennifer Kerns, a former contestant and a physician in obesity medicine, came to the Netflix show to say that obesity needed to be treated as a medical issue. She said that she did achieve her weight goal on the show, but saw issues in its format when she started working for the show. 

She shared that there was tension between the producers and the doctor on the show because the former looked for ways to make good TV. She called out the portrayal of obese people on the show, saying, 

"I think it really was, at its heart, a reality TV competition. Showing people with obesity running around with donuts in their mouths. Really offensive, frankly."

What The Biggest Loser star Jennifer said about her time on the show in Fit for TV: The Reality of The Biggest Loser? 

Jennifer said that while medical school was hard for more people, it was an added layer of stigma for her because she was overweight. She felt that her patients might think that if she couldn't take care of herself, how was she going to take care of them. She shared that her highest weight was about 300 pounds. 

An incident that happened in her medical school got her motivated to lose weight. Describing it, she said that to make the students comfortable about s*xuality, the professors were showing them s*xual footage of different types of s*xualities. It had heteros*xual people, a gay couple, a differently abled couple, and an obese couple. 

She said that at one point during the clip with the obese couple, a fit, fellow student of hers, said to the person sitting next to him that the clip was "disgusting". She said that it broke her heart and made her squeeze into the desk she couldn't fit into. She added that the incident made her take action and go on The Biggest Loser. 

She shared that while she achieved the weight goal she wanted to achieve through the show, she witnessed other problems inside the show's format. She said that after she finished her tenure as a contestant on the show, she was hired by Dr. Huizenga, the in-house doctor of the show. 

"There was always a bit of tension between Dr. Huizenga and the producers. I think that the producers needed to make good TV," she added. 

She stated that being sleep-deprived and hungry made it easier for people to get into fights, which made good TV. To get good TV material, they showed obese people running around with donuts in their mouths, which reinstated the common stereotypes around overweight people. She implied that the producers didn't do anything to erase the stigma around weight. 

She said she didn't think anyone should be exercising till they vomit, like it was shown on the show. However, achieving a dramatic weight loss transformation was so valuable to people that they were willing to do anything they had to do to achieve it. 

Stay tuned for more updates!