‘We are obsessed with weight’: Bob Harper on life as a trainer on The Biggest Loser | Television

In Netflix’s new documentary about The Largest Loser, Joelle Gwynn, a contestant on the televised weight-loss competitors, has a message for her former health coach: ‘Fuck you, Bob Harper.’ Gwynn was a contestant on the US present in 2008, and she or he has simply watched a clip of Harper screaming at her to “shut the fuck up” after she didn’t run on a treadmill for the required time. “Oh, and your little canine too,” she provides.The Largest Loser was a phenomenally profitable TV present. It ran for 18 seasons within the US, attracting greater than 10 million viewers in its prime and spawning greater than 30 worldwide variations, together with a UK iteration introduced in 2012 by Davina McCall.The present was undeniably the making of Harper, who went from being a farmer’s son who dropped out of college as a result of he couldn’t afford it, to an American family title who appeared on The Traitors US and RuPaul’s Drag Race. He’s “actually proud” of the years he labored on “Loser”, as he refers to it, and has little time for its critics.“That Joelle, she simply doesn’t like me, does she?” he says with a smile when he speaks to me by way of Zoom, having simply completed watching Match for TV: The Actuality of the Largest Loser, the brand new documentary during which he additionally seems. He’s calling from his stylish, monochrome New York house, the place his “little canine”, Ralph (after Ralph Lauren), is darting round behind him. Days away from his sixtieth birthday, the truth TV star says he has “discovered to not take issues personally”.For the uninitiated, every season of The Largest Loser was filmed over a 30-week interval, and introduced collectively a gaggle of people that wished to drop pounds (and who, like all good actuality TV contestants, usually had deeply harrowing again tales). Contact with their pals and households was reduce off, they usually had been despatched to stay on a ranch, put into groups and assigned a coach (comparable to Harper), who guided them via an intense exercise schedule. Outdoors the health club, the groups confronted “challenges” and “temptations” for which they may win prizes or immunity from elimination. Every week, the contestants had been weighed, and those that had misplaced the bottom proportion of their earlier physique weight risked being despatched dwelling. On the finish of the season, $250,000 was awarded to the remaining contestant who had misplaced essentially the most weight.Harper in Match for TV. {Photograph}: Courtesy of NetflixThe inflexible format meant that being as skinny as attainable – not essentially as wholesome as attainable, although contestants had been monitored by well being professionals – turned the first objective of the present, and big emphasis was positioned on the best way contestants appeared, with dolled-up finalists strolling on stage alongside unhappy, washed-out holograms of their pre-show selves.“We’re all obsessive about our seems,” Harper says in Match for TV. “As a result of aren’t we?” he says after I ask him about it. “I do know that in all probability sounds actually shallow, however I’ve labored within the health enterprise for a protracted, very long time. And sure, I need to be as wholesome as I presumably can”, as do “all of the people who I’ve ever labored with”, however seems are “an enormous a part of it … I need to look good after I go to the seashore.”Harper’s personal seems had been additionally necessary when it got here to The Largest Loser. The roles performed by him and Jillian Michaels, the present’s different unique coach, partly concerned being eye sweet for viewers: skinny, ripped examples of what the present deemed to be fascinating. Harper has plenty of tattoos, which had been “an actual difficulty” with the producers, “as a result of they didn’t know what the American viewers would or wouldn’t reply to”. He was made to put on lengthy sleeves to cowl them up – till, Harper says, on one non-shooting day: “I didn’t have a shirt on after I was coaching they usually noticed me they usually had been like, ‘Oh, he seems nice. He can present no matter he desires.’”Jillian Michaels and Bob Harper. {Photograph}: Richard Hartog/Los Angeles Instances/Getty ImagesProducers additionally apprehensive about him speaking about being homosexual on the present. Harper got here out at 15, however didn’t talk about it publicly till a dialog he had with a homosexual contestant was proven on The Largest Loser in 2013. “Everybody was type of nervous about that,” he says, however his view was: “Why would I not discuss it? I’m not ashamed of who I’m. I by no means have been.”Born in rural Tennessee, Harper says he was “undoubtedly completely different” from his mother and father and two older sisters, and as a younger grownup he moved an hour south to Nashville to search for work. The proprietor of his native health club took him beneath her wing, and he started educating health courses, which took him to Los Angeles, the place his shoppers included Julia Roberts and Ellen DeGeneres. Because of the movie stars and Hollywood brokers who attended his courses, his title was put ahead when producers started discussing The Largest Loser, and he went on to develop into the one coach to seem in all 17 seasons, between 2004 and 2016, in addition to the one-season 2020 reboot, during which he was the present’s presenter.The Largest Loser “was the toughest factor I’ve ever accomplished,” Harper says. Even on “darkish days” when there was no filming, the coach was busy main “extra smart, low-pressure exercises” – these days had been “after we received all the true work accomplished”, he says. He drained himself out to the purpose that after one season, he received shingles, and remembers being so hungry on set that he would typically eat the snacks that had been offered for the contestants in temptation challenges.“Temptations” had been one facet of the present with which Harper didn’t agree. They concerned bringing the contestants into rooms filled with high-calorie meals, which they needed to determine whether or not to eat (which may win them benefits within the competitors or the possibility for a deal with, comparable to visiting household) or refuse, to forestall weight acquire. He tried to push again on these challenges to the producers “on a regular basis”, he says, however he and the opposite trainers “didn’t have a say in it”.The Largest Loser ran for 18 seasons within the US. {Photograph}: Courtesy of NetflixSuch challenges, in addition to filming methods comparable to shaking the digital camera when a contestant fell over to make it look as if their weight had brought on the bottom to maneuver, had been “designed to make you draw conclusions about fats individuals”, says the creator and activist Aubrey Gordon in Match for TV. After I ask Harper if he thinks the present made enjoyable of fats individuals, he says he can solely converse for himself, however “that’s one thing I might by no means do and have by no means accomplished”.I point out a examine that confirmed a rise in anti-fat attitudes after individuals had been proven episodes of The Largest Loser. Harper hasn’t heard of it, however thinks it’s “silly”. “The trolls which might be on the market simply need to assault in any method, as a result of individuals are going to have such a robust opinion in the case of weight reduction,” he says. He’s eager to share examples of people that have instructed him they had been impressed by The Largest Loser: “I actually do imagine that we did assist lots of people.”However even if you happen to purchase into the present’s “inspirational” message, the very fact stays that almost all of Loser’s contestants regained weight after the competitors had ended. Relating to any type of food plan or health routine, “the success charge general may be very low,” Harper says. “It’s actually unhappy, but it surely’s such a actuality.”He’s a lot happier to speak in regards to the present’s “success tales”, like Olivia Ward, who entered season 11 of The Largest Loser along with her sister, Hannah Curlee. She gained, with Curlee coming second, and later named her baby Harper in honour of the coach. “I used to be actually touched by that,” Harper says, including that he and Ward have remained pals: “She’s flying in for my celebration subsequent Saturday.” Ward “seems higher than ever”, he’s fast to inform me. “And her sister Hannah, she seems nice too.”By “nice”, he presumably means “slim” – and although Harper says he’s “a agency believer that wholesome our bodies are available in many shapes and plenty of sizes”, after I ask whether or not he agrees with Loser’s simplistic categorisation of skinny being good and fats being dangerous, he says: “Effectively, fats is dangerous. Let’s not child anyone.”The present’s trainers: Jennifer Widerstrom, Harper and Dolvett Quince. {Photograph}: NBC/NBCU Picture Financial institution/NBCUniversal/Getty ImagesHarper is aware of in addition to anyone that those that look match should endure from sudden well being issues. In 2017, at 51, he had what is called a “widowmaker” coronary heart assault due to an undiagnosed genetic difficulty, which left him clinically lifeless on the ground of his health club for 9 minutes. Fortunately, there was a health care provider current who carried out CPR, and Harper made it to hospital in time. If it had occurred whereas he was alone in his house, he says: “I wouldn’t be right here.”Having the center assault “fucked me up”, Harper says. He struggled mentally with going from being the person figuring out in his 50s who may sustain with 20 and 30-year-olds, to “an individual that couldn’t stroll round a metropolis block”.Loads of individuals from The Largest Loser received in contact once they heard what had occurred – however not Michaels. “We weren’t besties, however we had been companions on a tv present for a really very long time,” he says, so it “spoke volumes to me” that she didn’t get in contact. However, he provides: “I might not anticipate Jillian Michaels to do something apart from what she desires to do.”Michaels was at all times the extra headstrong of the present’s unique trainers, and she or he brought on controversy in 2013 by giving rule-breaking caffeine capsules to her workforce of contestants. Did Harper ever give his contestants any type of complement? “Completely not,” he says.In any case, the 2013 season marked the start of the tip for Loser: on high of the furore over the caffeine capsules, the present was additional criticised when winner Rachel Frederickson appeared within the finale having misplaced a record-breaking 59.62% of her unique physique weight, with many viewers believing her weight reduction had gone too far.He and Michaels “had been horrified” when Frederickson appeared on stage for her closing weigh-in, Harper says. He thinks her background in aggressive swimming led to her excessive strategy. “You speak to any one who’s an athlete. That’s a unique breed of particular person,” he says. “And evidently this lady was like, I’m going to win this present and I’m going to do no matter it takes.”But his “horror” at Frederickson’s excessive weight reduction doesn’t appear to have led to a lot reflection on his involvement within the present that inspired her behaviour. Granted, he wasn’t Frederickson’s assigned coach. Nor was he season three contestant Kai Hibbard’s, he factors out after I ask him how he feels about experiences that Hibbard later developed an consuming dysfunction.There has additionally been criticism from contestants he did prepare, together with Suzanne Mendonca, who appeared on the second season and in 2016 threatened to file a category motion lawsuit in opposition to the present, complaining that she later regained 150lbs (68kg) , and that in taping she was “dehydrated, vomiting and restricted to consuming 800 energy a day.”Although Harper tries “to not have too many regrets in my life,” he does concede that two moments which might be introduced up within the documentary – shouting at Gwynn and telling Mendonca that it was “good” when she threw up as a result of it will assist her drop pounds – had been issues he “shouldn’t have” accomplished. However, he provides: “You even have to recollect, everybody that got here on Loser, we had been all adults.”Effectively, apart from the “child ambassadors”, junior individuals whose weight reduction was documented in segments of among the later seasons. “Oh, I don’t actually keep in mind that,” Harper says.Does he suppose the present would get made now? He doesn’t see why not, though he admits: “It must be utterly completely different.” However “we as a society are simply as obsessive about weight reduction as we’ve ever been,” he says, pointing to the rise of weight-loss medication. Harper doesn’t essentially promote these sorts of medication, however says he’s “for something that it’s essential to get you on the trail that you simply need to be on”.Relating to his personal path, he says he’s in his “retirement period”, however remains to be having fun with educating scorching yoga courses in New York. He’s single, having damaged off his 2019 engagement to his long-term boyfriend Anton Gutierrez, “so if you understand anybody …” he jokes. He’s content material with the life he has constructed for himself, and appears unlikely to be affected by conversations in regards to the ethics of Loser that Match for TV will undoubtedly convey again into focus.“I knew what the present represented to me,” he says. “I’ve nothing however expertise and actually good reminiscences.” Match for TV is on Netflix, from Friday