So I watched Dr Phil’s season premiere yesterday. I really don’t care for his “ultimate” weight-loss challenge at all. He had 100 finalists in the audience, from over 7000 submissions and today he’ll pick 12 folks to participate in his televised weight-loss program.

It seems really exploitive to me. Firstly, he’s not really selling anything you can’t get from dozens of other sources. Secondly, you know that he’s going to pick people who seem really pathetic, criers; you know the type I mean? I just thought that the whole thing was very sad and the fact that he has lent his name to a bunch of shoddy, sugar filled “diet” products tells me that his motivation is totally financial. He claims to have obese people in his family and that he’s been working on the issues surrounding weight for 30 years. If that’s true, why did he wait until he was into his second season of his program to introduce this? Do you think it is a coincidence that his most popular broadcasts from last season were about weight-loss? It seems as though he’s looked at his demographic research and picked a vulnerable, needy group to “rescue.”

Maybe I’m wrong, maybe he is “starting a movement to battle obesity” like he claims. I just get a bad feeling whenever I see the word “ultimate” flash across the screen. I can’t help but think that he’s going to end up doing more harm than good when it’s all over. Having said that, I’d love to see him prove me wrong!