is jello mocking fat people?

so i was watching the biggest loser yesterday on tape, since i have to work 'til 8pm my dearest set my vcr to record the season premier for me on wednesday. yes yes, one day we WILL join the 21st century & get tivo or the like, for now, while residing with my 'rents, the video cassette recorder will just have to do. anyway, i'm watching the biggest loser, & i come to a realization, it's being sponsored by jello (you must check this website, roll your mouse a bit over the sections, disturbing, no?) the $250,000 grand prize for the fatty whose dropped the most weight is offered by jello! now let's ponder this for a moment.

i realized that somehow this seems very very wrong. now being a fatty myself, & i'm sure that most of you out there on the net can agree with this, many fat people jiggle when they move. fat is by no means as stoic as muscle, it tends to wiggle wobble & flop all over the place. anyone remember the simpsons episode where dr. hibbert set homer's fat to jiggling? yeah, not a pretty sight, but there's sometimes truth in cartoons. arms, bellies, thighs, butts all kind of roll & move on their own accord in an odd relationship with gravity.

now think about jello. think about jello on a plate, maybe at a pot luck or family reunion? it trembles, wobbles, wiggles all over the place. much like a fat physique when put in motion. so it seems very wrong that a food, which the "regular version" is mostly sugar, is sponsoring a competition to lose weight. why doesn't budweiser just sponsor aa meetings too? isn't there a certain sence of irony in all of this?

well the lightbulb was glowing quite brightly above my noggin, i paused the tv, shouted over to jack in his room saying "i think it's wrong that jello is sponsoring the biggest loser!" he asked my reasoning & i explained, & then asked him "haven't you ever seen me run?" to which he replied, "yeah, & it's pretty funny to watch."

--pause--

yes, the boy is still alive. lucky for him he was out of my reach & i didn't feel like jumping over my dog & leaping hands first at his neck. i love him dearly, but sometimes jack has all the tact of a twenty pound sledge hammer to the base of the skull. guess that's what happens when you go for a younger guy, eh?

for anyone who hasn't watched the show, the premise is that nbc brings 14 very obese people to a ranch in california to learn how to exercise, eat healthy, & lose weight. they're divided into two teams, the red & the blue, each led by a personal trainer, (bob harper & kim lyons). at the end of each week on the ranch they have a weigh in, & the team with the least percentage of weight lost goes to elimination & then has to vote off one member of their team. like survivor but for fat people. now the whole point of the contestants being there is to become firmer, leaner, & less resembling of the famed gelatin, which is why it seems so very wrong for jello to be the biggest sponsor of this show.

as long as i'm harping on biggest loser, i'd like to add two other things. #1 is i signed up for their mailing list because i'm too damn cheap to pay to be in their club, & at least once a day i get emails advertising diet pills, surgery, weight loss shakes, & all other sorts of things that are the very antithesis of what the show itself is promoting. which happens to be losing weight through the oh so magically simple equation of calories in/calories out, meaning burn more than you consume. {{didja note the sarcasm there, huh huh huh?}}

& 2# is that while the show is inspirational in that these people lose a bunch of weight, become health nuts & really improve their quality of life, that it is unrealistic for a person in the real world to routinely lose 8-20+ lbs per week, unless they've undergone bariatric surgery. if i went in to my doctor' office saying that i'd been losing 5 lbs a week for a month they'd put me in the hospital to find out what's wrong 'cause that just ain't healthy. it's also an unattainable standard for those of us living in the real world, having to work five days a week, battle rush hour traffic & deal with family. where would we find the 4+ hours a day to work out? & would we really be able to sustain that over time? me thinks not.

overall, i do like the show. i get sucked into rooting for my favorites & hoping that they do well. i've thought about auditioning for the show in the past. ok, i actually did audition back in december 2004 in minneapolis at the rock bottom brewery. but i never got a call back. guess i wasn't charming enough or something. but it was insane how many people were there, hundreds & hundreds, we were interviewed in groups of ten, we each got basically one minute to pitch our case, & that was after standing in line for a few hours. personally, i think i would've been fabulous on the show. i'm a dynamic person, with a great smile, & believe it or not, very little shame when it comes to shaking it on national tv in a sports bra & biker shorts. hell, i'd strip as much clothing off my body to make me as streamlined & light as i could for the scale. at home i weight myself bare ass nekkid, & that's only 'cause i'm blind as a bat without my glasses.

if i planned on being fat & needing the show i'd audition again, but i can't be fat anymore. i just, i can't, i'm at the end of my rope. *sighs* more about that in another blog.