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Former host of The Biggest Loser, Alison Sweeney, and trainer Bob Harper opened up about how much they disliked the reality series’ controversial temptation challenges
“The temptation challenges were the hardest part of the show for me,” Sweeney says in Netflix’s new docuseries Fit for TV: The Reality of The Biggest Loser
Fit for TV: The Reality of The Biggest Loser is streaming now on Netflix
The Biggest Loser‘s former host Alison Sweeney and trainers Bob Harper were not fans of one of the show’s most controversial challenges.
Sweeney, 48, and Harper, 59, opened up about how much they disliked the NBC reality show’s temptation challenges in Netflix’s new three-part docuseries Fit for TV: The Reality of The Biggest Loser, which premiered Friday, Aug. 15. In the challenge, contestants were encouraged to quickly eat a large amount of unhealthy food in exchange for a chance to visit with their families during the week. This was despite the show’s stated goal of being focused on weight loss. The contestant who consumed the most calories won the challenge.
“The temptation challenges were the hardest part of the show for me,” Sweeney says in the docuseries.
Courtesy of Netflix
Former host of “The Biggest Loser” Alison Sweeney.
“There was a challenge where if we eat enough food, we win a prize,” season 7 contestant Joelle Gwynn recalls.
The contestants would still be weighed later and needed to lose weight, but whoever consumed the most calories from the junk food buffet during the temptation challenge, in which they were left alone with the food for five minutes, had an opportunity to go home and visit their family, with their trainer in tow.
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“That’s mean,” Gwynn says. “We go through enough s—, we go through enough stuff. We’re trying to do better.”
“If I just eat this slice of pizza, is that going to be enough so I can go home and give my boys a hug and tell them that I miss them?” another contestant says.
Harper said he was not a fan of the challenge either, and called out The Biggest Loser’s producers for including it.
“There’d be just like, all this stupid s—,” Harper says of the challenges. “Candy, cake, cookies, pop — anything. All the things.”
“It was so dumb to me,” he continued. “Well, thank [The Biggest Loser producers] Dave Broome and JD Roth. I mean, it was their show.”
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For their part, the producers argued that temptations are part of reality and needed to be mirrored in the show in some capacity.
“What is a temptation? A temptation is real life,” Roth, one of the show’s executive producers, says in the docuseries. “I can’t say 100% of the temptations we got right. But I can say that life is full of temptations.”
“I needed the show to be relatable to the rest of the world who aren’t in this dome that we’ve created,” Broome adds. “You pass a cupcake in your refrigerator or on your counter or you pass that fast food store or restaurant on your way home from work. How can we get that in The Biggest Loser?”
PEOPLE reached out to NBC for comment on the claims made in Fit for TV: The Reality of The Biggest Loser, but did not receive an immediate response.
Fit for TV: The Reality of The Biggest Loser is streaming now on Netflix.
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