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"  Twenty-four-year-old Rachel Frederickson won the latest season of NBC&amp;#039;s reality show The Biggest Loser this week, having lost an amazing 155 pounds. And rather than congratulate her on the achievement \u2014 also the $250k that comes with it \u2014 people decided Frederickson looked too skinny. Two of the show&amp;#039;s trainers, Bob Harper and Jillian Michaels, looked shocked upon seeing her new figure, with Michaels caught exclaiming, &amp;quot;Oh my god,&amp;quot; as cameras panned away:  The response on Twitter included folks calling her appearance unhealthy, as well as &amp;quot;disturbing,&amp;quot; &amp;quot;upsetting,&amp;quot; and, oddly enough, against what the show should be about. Though NBC voiced support of Rachel&amp;#039;s efforts, Michaels was critical in a statement saying she and Harper &amp;quot;[were]\u00A0not comfortable commenting on Rachel&amp;#039;s journey because [we] weren&amp;#039;t her trainers and weren&amp;#039;t given an opportunity to work with her at any point ... Any questions about the contestants on The\u00A0Biggest Loser\u00A0should be directed to the show&amp;#039;s producers.&amp;quot; Dolvett Quince, who did work with Rachel during the show&amp;#039;s taping, took a more measured approach in a statement on his Facebook page: &amp;quot;Last night&amp;#039;s\u00A0Biggest Loser\u00A0finale has sparked a huge reaction, and I do not want the day to end without addressing it. The Biggest Loser\u00A0is a journey which has its ups and downs. Please try not to look at one slice of Rachel&amp;#039;s journey and come to broad conclusions. Rachel&amp;#039;s health is and always has been my main concern and her journey to good health has not yet ended!!&amp;quot; Most importantly, Rachel herself says she sees a &amp;quot;strong, confident woman&amp;quot; when she looks in the mirror and &amp;quot;feels great.&amp;quot; Now my initial response is that, really, Rachel&amp;#039;s thoughts on her body are the only ones that matter. But she did also sign up for a reality TV show that would analyze her weight loss at length \u2014 so public discourse is fair game. And\u00A0The Biggest Loser has become a motivational juggernaut in its transformative narratives: lives improved, health problems overcome, goals achieved. It&amp;#039;s basically a factory for happy endings. But at the end of the day, The Biggest Loser is a reality television competiton. The clue is in its very name \u2014 to be the biggest loser, and to do so, you must lose the most weight. (And then you win money, lots of money, which is a serious point if not\u00A0the\u00A0point.)\u00A0I have not seen the show&amp;#039;s contracts, but if there are any limits imposed on how that weight can be lost, Rachel has presumably not broken them, or she&amp;#039;d have been DQ&amp;#039;d. Contestants on the show have played tactically before, because what would reality TV be without the scheming villains? And these tactics have often been viewed as dangerous, whether it&amp;#039;s the player working themself to a point of exhaustion to drop that extra pound before the weekly weigh in or the contestants who&amp;#039;ve won &amp;quot;immunity&amp;quot; from elimination so bulk up with water just before hand, skewing their percentile weight loss for future weeks. Yes, there may be people who sign up just &amp;quot;for the experience&amp;quot; \u2014 you know, that old reality TV refrain \u2014 but others come to play the game. If Rachel&amp;#039;s one of them, she played to win. That meant losing every pound possible. She did so, and she won.\u00A0And besides, people have ended up far skinnier than Rachel while competing on shows like Survivor for the big prize. That&amp;#039;s fair, and so is this. It&amp;#039;s also worth noting, as both she and her trainer have, that her weight loss journey is not over. When undergoing a drastic diet and/or exercise routine, in many cases it&amp;#039;s considered prudent to drop first to an amount slightly below your end goal. That way, as you move from one behavior pattern to another, more sustainable lifestyle, any weight gain \u2014 very common in the first weeks or months \u2014 won&amp;#039;t push you out of your comfort zone. Again, in the context of The Biggest Loser as a competition, it actually doesn&amp;#039;t really matter whether Rachel is at this point or not, but it&amp;#039;s entirely possible. Follow Alex on Twitter. Photo credit: courtesy of The Biggest Loser / NBC "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/news/a19985/biggest-loser-controversy/>