As a culture, it's pretty safe to say that we tend to get excited for people who lose weight when they need to and work on getting fit—I mean, how cool is it seeing regular people go from overweight to muscular and healthy on The Biggest Loser?
But while watching this season's finale, we couldn't help but wonder if the winner lost too much weight. First things first: We're in awe of the contestants' achievements and hard work. This time, though, it seemed the finalists crossed some invisible line from "healthy" to "skinny"—even the show's trainers looked a bit shocked by the results.
Rachel Frederickson was crowned the winner—and took home $250,000 for her achievement. Frederickson went from 260 pounds down to 105, losing 155 pounds and 59.62 percent of her body weight.
Her story is a compelling one: She was a competitive swimmer in high school, and she gave up a full ride to college in order to move with her boyfriend to Europe. When the relationship went south, she consoled herself with food. During the course of this season of *The Biggest Loser, *she threw herself into getting fit and challenging herself—a recent episode showed her powering through a triathlon (no easy feat!). Last night, she debuted her new, slender frame for the finale—and people had plenty to say about it on Twitter (generally, that Frederickson lost too much weight—look here and here).
The contestants who placed second and third also dropped a significant number of pounds; David Brown lost 54.28 percent of his body weight, while Bobby Saleem lost 52.51 percent.
But Frederickson, who has said in interviews that she's 5'5", now has a BMI of 17.5—that's considered "underweight" according to the scale ("normal" is 18.5 to 24.9; "overweight" is 25 to 29.9; "obese" is 30 or above). BMI isn't the only way to measure whether someone is at a healthy weight, but when you combine that, the public outcry, and Frederickson's strikingly thin appearance, you can't help but wonder if she's lost a bit too much.
Addressing the criticism about her weight loss, Frederickson told Today that she eats five times a day, sticks to 1,600 calories a day, and "worked out a ton and ate super healthy" during the course of the show.
Show trainers Jillian Michaels and Bob Harper both released statements saying they're uncomfortable talking about Frederickson's weight loss (since they didn't work with her one-on-one); but trainer Dolvett Quince, who did train with her, posted this note on his Facebook page: "...Please try not to look at one slice of Rachel's journey and come to broad conclusions. Rachel's health is and always has been my main concern, and her journey to good health has not yet ended!!"
As for the other slices of Rachel's journey, she put in into words for Access Hollywood: "My journey was about finding that confident girl again. Little by little, challenge by challenge, that athlete came out. And it sparked inside me this feeling that I can do anything; I can succeed. I've found that girl, and I'm just going to embrace her fully and go into this healthy lifestyle and work and continue to and maintain that healthy lifestyle."
What do you think? Is Frederickson's weight loss still inspirational, or do you feel that her weight loss went too far?
