Visual Rhetoric in The Biggest Loser

     This week in Everything’s an Argument we read about visual arguments. In trying to connect this with the obesity epidemic, I thought of the t.v. show The Biggest Loser. In the show they do weigh-ins every week to see how much they have lost, and on the finale they show before and after pictures from their time on the show. I have noticed that visual rhetoric plays an important role in this show. In the first weigh in the women contestants wear sports bras and big, baggy shorts. The unflattering clothes they are asked to wear accentuate the fact that they are not skinny. In the final weigh in the women wear longer spandex-like shirts, and tight short that go to their knees that hide any flaws that might still remain. The clothes they wear at the end help them to show off their new bodies while helping cover up anything else that they may not want everyone watching the show to see. This visual rhetoric plays many roles in The Biggest Loser. One role it plays is that the producers want the before and after to be as much of an extreme difference as possible. The more of a change there is the better it makes the show look. Another role that it plays is that it makes the contestants feel great about how much weight they have lost by showing them in clothes that make them look good. In The Biggest Loser the contestants work very hard and deserve to look great in the finale, because they have lost a lot of weight. The clothes that they are dressed in do play a big role in how great they look though. The visual rhetoric in the show accentuates the bad (at the beginning) and the good (at the end.)