“It’s confrontational, emotionally and physically. It’s painful to look at these issues. If you’ve been running from a problem for 30 years and then suddenly someone says, ‘Wow, I think you’re really angry because your parents used to ostracize you and put you on a scale every week. It seems like your mother projected her self-worth issues on to you and you’ve taken that on.’ People don’t want to feel that hurt and that angry and that sad. So they run from it or they deny it or they reject it or they become unconscious about it. Unless they’re willing to do that work, the likelihood of them not only losing the weight but keeping it off is slim.”
Published 2008-11-30 23:44
Being a big ‘Loser’ isn’t bad
Jillian Michaels on weight, fitness, reality TV and dysfunctional families
PROFILE. When it comes to the biggest losers, Jillian Michaels is gigantic. Overweight as a child, Michaels is now a butt-kicking trainer on NBC’s “The Biggest Loser” with her own line of fitness products. But just because she’s won the losing game doesn’t mean that training for healthy living doesn’t continue to present some difficulties.
“It was a real challenge working with parents and kids this past season [on “The Biggest Loser”] just because I am human and I’m going to have my own transference with the contestants on the situations that occur,” she says. “Dealing with parents and kids just triggered my own feelings and issues about my upbringing and the relationship I have with my father and how he passed on a dysfunctional addiction with food to me. It’s really intense.”
With the series now taping it’s seventh season, Michaels says that the feedback from the reality competition show has been positive, though she’s realistic about its downside. “Is it reality television? Of course it is,” she says. “Are there things that I hate about it? You bet. When the contestants get eliminated is it maddening? Without a question. But ultimately I think it’s saving lives — not just for the contestants, but the show is in 90 countries now around the world. That’s something that you can’t negate.”