This show annoys me on so many levels. I hate the fact that the show spends almost no time explaining how fitness is achieved or effective nutrition strategies opting instead for fake melodrama. That aside, I just can’t understand why they do a weigh in instead of something like hydro testing for body fat percentage. Clearly they have the financial resources and they could have the drama either way. Clearly they should know that some of these contestants are putting on muscle mass which can lower their weight loss while still getting rid of more fat. Other than being a more accurate reflection of the contestants achievement each week it would go along way to correcting some fundamental misperceptions without penalizing those who might be outworking other contestants.
because testing for body fat percentage has an error of +/- 3% even with hydro testing.
and no, pretty much nobody adds muscle mass while losing weight.
some people however will lose less muscle than others, so your point is still valid. and ultimately the weight % system does favor the more obese individuals. but then they also face more challenges working out, so perhaps it evens out?
I’ve never seen the show, but my assumption is that the general population understands weight. Start dunking them in fancy underwater tanks and spouting off numbers that “no-one” understands and you lose your audience.
In the show they weigh the person and then they are graded on a percentage of weight lost. Using the body fat test could generate the same percentage number. Really they could do it and not even tell the public since they seem to be pretty liberal with the truth anyway.
Probably because people at that level of obesity really just need to lose lbs of fat first, before they can really work hard enough to put on muscle mass.
Or it could just be because they’re catering to the lowest denominator. Start throwing a % symbol out there and you’ll lose about half of the American audience.