Back in 2010, former Biggest Loser contestant Kai Hibbard spoke out against what she claimed were unsafe, unhealthy practices on the show which jeopardized her health. Hibbard was the runner up on the third season of the show, in 2006, having lost 118 pounds. Now that more time has passed, Hibbard is getting specific about what she went through. In a new interview, she tells the NY Post that she suffered from a kind of Stockholm syndrome on the show. She says contestants are isolated from friends and family and put through a grueling process in which they’re worked to exhaustion and given demeaning feedback by trainers. Contestants work out at least four hours a day and eat less than 1,000 calories. Injuries and malnutrition issues are ignored in favor of the scale and storylines. It all sounds like what we’ve heard from other Loser contestants, but it’s still kind of shocking when someone goes on the record with this. The NY Post also got quotes from another Biggest Loser participant who spoke on condition of anonymity. Here’s some of their interview, with more at the source:

‘The whole f- -king show,” she says today, “is a fat-shaming disaster that I’m embarrassed to have participated in.”

Contestants are isolated
Once selected, Hibbard was flown to LA. When she got to her hotel, she was greeted by a production assistant, who checked her in and took away her key card. When not filming, she was to stay in her room at all times.

“The hotel will report to them if you leave your room,” Hibbard says. “They assume you’re going to talk to other contestants…”

Those who remain, Hibbard says, are not allowed to call home. “You might give away show secrets,” she says. After six weeks, contestants get to make a five-minute call, monitored by production.

“I know that one of the contestants’ children became very ill and was in the ICU,” Hibbard says. “He was allowed to talk to his family — but he didn’t want to leave, because the show would have been done with him.”

Trainers were sadistic
The trainers, [an anonymous source] says, took satisfaction in bringing their charges to physical and mental collapse. “They’d get a sick pleasure out of it,” she says. “They’d say, ‘It’s because you’re fat. Look at all the fat you have on you.’ And that was our fault, so this was our punishment.”

Hibbard had the same experience. “They would say things to contestants like, ‘You’re going die before your children grow up.’ ‘You’re going to die, just like your mother.’ ‘We’ve picked out your fat-person coffin’ — that was in a text message. One production assistant told a contestant to take up smoking because it would cut her appetite in half.”

Contestants ate less than 1,000 calories a day
Meanwhile, their calories were severely restricted. The recommended daily intake for a person of average height and weight is 1,200 to 1,600 calories per day. The contestants were ingesting far less than 1,000 per day.

Hibbard says the bulk of food on her season was provided by sponsors and had little to no nutritional value.

“Your grocery list is approved by your trainer,” she says. “My season had a lot of Franken-foods: I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter spray, Kraft fat-free cheese, Rockstar Energy Drinks, Jell-O.”

Contestants were not allowed to follow doctor’s orders
At one point, Hibbard says, production did bloodwork on all the contestants, and the show’s doctor prescribed electrolyte drinks. “And the trainer said, ‘Don’t drink that — it’ll put weight on you. You’ll lose your last chance to save your life.'”

“One contestant had a torn calf muscle and bursitis in her knees,” Hibbard says. “The doctor told her, ‘You need to rest.’ She said, ‘Production told me I can’t rest.’ At one point after that, production ordered her to run, and she said, ‘I can’t.’ She was seriously injured. But they edited her to make her look lazy and bitchy and combative.”

Hibbard’s own health declined dramatically. “My hair was falling out,” she says. “My period stopped. I was only sleeping three hours a night.” Hibbard says that to this day, her period is irregular, her hair still falls out, and her knees “sound like Saran Wrap” every time she goes up and down stairs. “My thyroid, which I never had problems with, is now crap,” she says.

“You’re brainwashed to believe that you’re super-lucky to be there,” Hibbard says. One doctor told a contestant she was exhibiting signs of Stockholm syndrome, and Hibbard herself fell prey to it.

“I was thinking, ‘Dear God, don’t let anybody down. You will appear ungrateful if you don’t lose more weight before the season finale.’ ”

[From The NY Post]

First season winner Ryan C. Benson has also spoken out against the Biggest Loser. Like Hibbard, he says he was dehydrated from the show. He also suffered kidney damage and was peeing blood after the show wrapped. Countless doctors and nutrition and fitness experts have spoken out against the dangers of the kind of rapid weight loss portrayed on Biggest Loser.

Hibbard was 26 when she participated on Biggest Loser, she’s now 35. She recently posted to Facebook that she refuses to “be be reduced to a number.” Hibbard previously admitted to gaining 70 pounds back after the show, but she says now that she doesn’t want to be reduced “to something as meaningless as my weight or clothing size.” Good for her. She also recently shaved her head to help raise awareness and funding to combat childhood cancers.

Many people will make the argument that Hibbard knew what she was getting into when she signed up for Biggest Loser. She claims that she hadn’t seen the show prior to 2006, which was just the third season, and that her best friend convinced her to send in an audition tape. I suspect that more potential contestants know what Biggest Loser entails now, and that Biggest Loser contracts have become air tight to avoid contestants speaking out like this. I know it makes for good television to have people lose weight so quickly and it’s surely cheaper than doing it the more healthy way, but I wish they would strive for a realistic balance.

Photo credit: Getty Images, NBC and Facebook