I remember watching every episode of this with my mam was a kid.. i can't believe how brutal it was now watching it back. Should we cover more eps? lmk!

Important to remember that over eating is ALSO an ED not just under eating.

I’ve been both underweight (ED) and overweight. This show helped nobody!

Rather than swapping diets they should put them both on a healthy diet straight off

37:59 For someone who's underweight and doesn't eat much it takes time for your body to adjust. I couldn't put on any weight for months, even though I was eating significantly more than previously. The body needs time and everyone is built differently.

90% of old British telly was kinda just fatshaming people

I always felt that the super sized were made to feel gross, lazy and the worst camera angles. The thinner person is treated as kinda stupid and sad. But better camera angles. A lot of the skinnies I think had EDs and it was treated as “ just eat more food stupid!”
It wasn’t a great show… mental health wise.

This cut deep… teenage me was OBSESSED with this show. Seventeen years later I’m still getting treatment for an eating disorder having been in rehabs and sectioned several times. This show sends shivers down my spine, but my donut-self now has a conflict of interest 😅

I think most of the reason that the skinnier people get less sympathy is that societally they don't suffer the same negative treatment for their appearance, which breeds resentment. They're seen as pretty, desirable, attractive, while overweight individuals are mocked and treated as less than constantly. Add to that that it's considerably easier to gain weight than it is to lose it for most people, and it becomes a lot harder to feel sympathetic, especially in cases where the person seems like they aren't putting in the effort. Charlene here seems like she isn't ready to acknowledge her eating disorder, she constantly makes other excuses, and she picks at the food from Dawn's diet while not really seeming to eat it. You can't help someone that isn't ready to get better.

This show is literally insane. They've all got eating disorders and swapping diets is definitely not the way to go. The super size person's diet always looks absolutely awful to me. The grease, the lack of veg and fruit, everything about it is always horrible. I don't blame the super skinny person for looking horrified most of the time, I'd be horrified too.

Not Cam calling out my breakfast… blueberry vape and a white monster and I’m set😂

Being forced to eat is a miserable feeling and skinny doesn't equal to healthy. When I was a kid in elementary school I was on Ritalin for my ADHD and it made me feel not hungry. I was constantly pressured by the school staff to eat and it made me so self conscious. I hated it.

Refeeding syndrome is physically painful. Both of these diets are an evil degree of unhealthy for these women. I know all reality shows are abusive, but this one just makes me sad

This show FUELLED my eating disorder. I would look at the underweight people and copy their diets. Now that I’m recovered I can see just how mental this show was. Not to mention, barely anyone took me seriously when I was underweight. Just called me “skinny” and even complimented me when I was on deaths doorstep 🙄 It’s comforting that more information and sympathy is now available for those struggling with eating disorders.

35:44 I imagine this whole exercise is triggering the distress of Dawn’s childhood food insecurity. This isn’t an equal challenge. Dawn is literally on a deprivation diet while Charlene has the “luxury” of eating only as much as she wants and tossing the rest.  It’s unspeakably cruel in the same way force feeding Charlene would be.

I genuinely used to abuse this show as a kid, scaring myself with the 'supersized' and learning tips from the 'superskinny' - it fueled my ED in the worst way possible

It's crazy that no psych expert was involved to try to understand both perspectives. I totally agree. Charlene was dealt dirty and I feel for her. I hope she has a healthier relationship with food now.

My mum used to have this on and point at the overweight people berating me and saying i would end up like them so i would study the underweight peoples diets in an attempt to be skinny too :// it honestly made my ed so much worse and i don't doubt it harmed everybody on the show as well as viewers :(

Hi Cam
You made  me howl laughing,  your brilliant and just for info- I am a good 4 stone lighter since doing the show, not dead yet 😊

its crazy how much hate charllene got in this episode, even despite the fact she's on this show in the first place, the way she looks at and acts around food it was so immediately obvious that she has a bad relationship with food that needed help, and instead she gets nothing but 'just eat' which like you said she's probably heard this hundreds of times before the show, and it really does nothing for that person but fill them with more shame and guilt