In April 2006, Hibbard was selected as one of 14 cast members for
season 3 of the US version of
The Biggest Loser. She went on to lose 118 pounds and take second place at the finale. During the filming of the show, Hibbard was featured as the cover model for the December 2006 issue of
Prevention magazine. Following the finale and airing of
The Biggest Loser Hibbard was featured as the cover model on the April 2007 issue of ''
Woman's World'' magazine. In May 2007, Hibbard gave a
Time magazine interview where she denounced the methods used on
The Biggest Loser and brought light to the unhealthy techniques used to cut weight for the show, starting her career in activism for body acceptance and critical analysis of weight loss reality television. She was quoted in
The New York Times in October 2007 discussing the dehydration and unhealthy techniques used to achieve weight loss on
The Biggest Loser. In March 2009, she followed up with a spotlight interview in the
Anchorage Daily News detailing the health struggles of life since appearing on reality television. She appeared as the spokesperson for Body Renew Gyms in Alaska from 2008 through 2009, then in 2010 partnered with
David McLane to appear in their marketing materials for a line of vitamins and supplements, parting ways when the company went in a different direction that Hibbard felt was against her message of activism. In April 2010,
Eric Deggans, then with the
Tampa Bay Times, published an interview with Hibbard detailing the "unhealthy misleading" attributes of the show. In June that same year Hibbard appeared on
The Early Show detailing the harsh unhealthy reality of weight loss reality television.
ABC News picked up the story in that same month of 2010 with a piece detailing Hibbard's renunciation of the show's methods.
The Huffington Post also picked up the interview. The story gained more traction when Hibbard did an interview with Golda Poretsky of BodyLoveWellness that was taken by
Perez Hilton. In 2013, when Season 15
The Biggest Loser winner
Rachel Frederickson won with a
BMI in the unhealthy range, Hibbard was once again thrust into the spotlight because she had previously warned that results like this were inevitable with the methods used on the show. In February 2014
The New York Times interviewed Hibbard about the show and how reality television affects viewers and participants negatively. That same month, Hibbard recounted to the
Huffington Post the lack of aftercare contestants receive in the aftermath of the show. In May 2014, Hibbard completed an interview/collaborated on a piece for
Cracked, "Five Details They Cut From My Season of The Biggest Loser", which was viewed over two million times. It was one of that year's most popular articles, and was picked up by
The Huffington Post and led to the 2016 off-Broadway play,
Taught, loosely based on Hibbard's experiences written by Mercedes Lake. In June 2014, the show's arguably most famous trainer
Jillian Michaels left the show, stating she was "deeply concerned" about the show's "poor care of the contestants", lending credence to Hibbard's claims of unhealthy physical and psychological methods used by the show. In January 2015, the
New York Post published an article detailing some of the experiences Hibbard had on
The Biggest Loser along with the support of unnamed anonymous fellow contestants. Hibbard referred to
The Biggest Loser as an "unhealthy fat shaming sh*t show" in a January 2015
Redbook interview and producers of the show fired back in January 2015 in
People magazine and on
E! News Daily. In that same month of 2015
Us Weekly featured a profile detailing the health ramifications participation in
The Biggest Loser had on Hibbard's physical health (though they got details like weight loss totals wrong) along with a piece in the
Boston Herald on the topic. Also in January 2015, fellow former
Biggest Loser contestants
Rulon Gardner,
Suzanne Mendonca,
Lezlye Donahue and
Joelle Gwynn came forward in a
New York Post piece supporting Hibbard's previous claims about the show's practices and alleging that contestants' health is adversely affected. That piece was followed in May 2015 with a piece also in the
New York Post alleging drug use on set as directed by the show, and a lawsuit against one of the contestants, Joelle Gwynn, was initiated by Richard Huizenga, the doctor associated with the show. In 2016, the results of a long-term study by the
National Institute of Health (NIH) were released that documented the weight gain and loss of contestants in
season 8. The study found that most of the 16 contestants regained their weight, and in some cases, weighed more than before they entered the contest.
The New York Times reported: "When the show began, the contestants, though hugely overweight, had normal metabolisms for their size, meaning they were burning a normal number of calories for people of their weight. When it ended, their metabolisms had slowed radically and their bodies were not burning enough calories to maintain their thinner sizes. ... What shocked the researchers was what happened next: As the years went by and the numbers on the scale climbed, the contestants’ metabolisms did not recover. They became even slower, and the pounds kept piling on. It was as if their bodies were intensifying their effort to pull the contestants back to their original weight." The article quoted Dr. Michael Rosenbaum, who said, "The difficulty in keeping weight off reflects biology, not a pathological lack of willpower." Hibbard spearheaded the wave of former contestants, demanding
NBC cancel the show in light of years of contestant statements and this study's results. ==References==