‘SuperSize vs SuperSkinny’ is my favourite British TV show on dieting and body image!!!

I’ll often surf on W Network (Women Network) when I turn on the telly because they feature a lot of great British shows that I quite enjoy.

I discovered my newest favourite British show called “SuperSize vs SuperSkinny” a few weeks ago.

The premise of the show is quite brilliant and I’m sure that we’ll see a U.S. version in no time.

“SuperSize vs SuperSkinny” is a show about diet and nutrition. Each show features a diet swap between an obese person who eats far too much and a borderline-anorexic person who eats far too little (and often eats no carbs).

News flash: by avoiding one entire food group you seriously screw up your body … as women we NEED carbs in moderation.

It’s absolutely fascinating to observe a borderline-anorexic person struggle to swallow supersize portions (heck, I’d struggle myself). It’s also in some cases sad to observe the look on an obese person’s face when they see what they are supposed to eat and worry if the superskinny portions of borderline-anorexics will actually sustain them or if they’ll starve of hunger during the challenge.

The show is hosted by Dr Christian Jessen who has a mission to help the supersized and superskinny adopt a healthy eating regime for 12 weeks under strict medical supervision.

You’ll also see Gillian McKeith who hosts her own diet show called: “You are what you eat” (only W Network or Channel 4 in the U.K.) and she’ll be touring the U.K. to try out new weight lost gadgets and products on different British women.

Anna Richardson is the third host and also the one who will be testing a lot of the so-called diet-tricks and diet products.

The first show I watched featured Amy Jo (superskinny) and Andy (supersized).

Not only are the two participants forced to swap food portions, but they must look at each other’s body (only wearing underwear) to appreciate the difference, they must live in the same house for one week and they must sit at the same table to consume meals (the participants then go home and continue the program on their own for 11 weeks). It’s simply brilliant because it really forces the other person to understand what they are doing to their bodies by being able to take a step back and look at another person eat what they’ve been feeding their bodies for so long and so unconsciously.

Don’t think that the reality of challenge only hits Andy the supersized guy, Amy Jo the superskinny-workout-junkie-carb-phobic-portion-controlling gal actually understood how she was mistreating her body and she was able to overcome her fear (yes – FEAR) of carbs.

I truly enjoyed this show and I will be watching it on a weekly basis and I’ll try to bring some great health and diet tips as much as I can for those readers who cannot watch it.

NOTE: The only trick about the show for North Americans is to understand the weight system in the U.K. Most countries in the former Commonwealth still use the stone system, but in Canada, we’ve adopted the U.S. metric for weight measurements. Basically, one stone is equivalent to 14 pounds and to 6.35029318 kilograms. You’ll need to understand this in order to follow the progress of both participants.

During the episode I watched, host Anna Richardson tested one of the most shocking and most popular current celebrity diets I’ve ever heard of.  Can you imagine that stars are actually eating: baby food! Yes, the current new way to lose weight is to adopt the Baby Food Diet.

The logic is if it’s good for babies, it must be good for adults and it for sure will keep your weight down. News flash: babies have a different body composition than an adult that’s why we don’t feed them 12 oz steaks!

Eating baby food as an adult is a recipe for disaster and a sure way to completely screw up your system.

If you’re living in the U.S. and if you cannot watch “SuperSize vs SuperSkinny” on any stations or cable stations, you can catch the highlights on their Web site: SuperSize vs SuperSkinny.

Top photo from Channel 4 web site showing photos of episode 2 participants Yasmin and Darryl.

Photo of woman in pink t-shirt by colros