Posts Tagged ‘articles’

I don’t always post the links to the TV Week interviews, though perhaps I should. But the interview with Cosi is simply too good to pass up.

In it, Cosi is surprisingly frank about certain aspects of the show… and certain people.

I don’t want to spoil the whole thing for you, but he does call one contestant a cow.

Want to know who? Go read the interview on TV Week.

And feel free to come back here to comment on the contents!

Michelle has popped up in an article from yesterday’s Mercury, addressing the high rate of obesity amongst Tasmania’s children.

In the article, Michelle suggests one solution to this problem may be to institute “bootcamp” style workouts at the start of each school day.

“I’d love to see children do 30 minutes of exercise before class starts each day — that would be awesome,” Bridges said.

“Schools need to see the importance of exercise and encourage children to grow into healthy, active adults.”

Leaving aside the reluctance with which teachers would greet this proposition – would you want to teach a class of thirty sweaty, hyper kids each morning? – she is right that people need to stop turning a blind eye to the problem.

“We shouldn’t be kidding ourselves, we have to stop making excuses.”

She said fat adults were passing bad habits on to children, breeding whole families that were obese.

“Parents need to take control,” Bridges said.

“They’re the grown-ups, they’re the ones who should be setting the pace. They’ve got to set guidelines and be good role models.”

An idea which was reiterated in another article in today’s Mercury, where the Tasmanian Minister for Education, David Bartlett, says that the bootcamp idea is “too extreme”, but also…

He said parents needed to stop blaming schools for unfit children, and do more at home to encourage exercise and good eating habits.

“It’s a crowded curriculum and people in Tasmania, I believe, as my number one priority, want me to lift literacy and numeracy rates and that’s what we’re working hard on,” Mr Bartlett said.

He said more emphasis needed to be put on what happened at home.

Both sides make some good points. Mr Bartlett is correct in that parents need to take some responsibility for turning their children into pudgy nudfuhs. But at the same time that doesn’t excuse schools from attempting to educate children about health and fitness.

Is a “bootcamp” idea going too far? Probably, yes, but if you read what Michelle was actually suggesting, instead of simply freaking out at the “bootcamp” word, you’ll see that what she’s suggesting is really not so far away from what kids of my generation did on a regular basis. Various kinds of energetic exercise, done as a group activity, is a great way to get kids to be more active. Couple it with some instruction on healthy eating habits and maybe some practical lessons on preparing healthy, tasty, meals, and maybe the obesity epidemic would at least be slowed.

And if that doesn’t work, maybe the Government could mandate a real bootcamp for the parents of overweight children!

[Sources: School’s bootcamp and Bootcamp idea ‘too extreme’ both from the Mercury]

K-I-S-S-I-N-G!

Recently eliminated contestant Michael has confirmed in an interview with Woman’s Day that he and Sheridan have kissed… and more than once, too!

“I am attracted to her so we did share a bit of a kiss, a few of them. It’s not on camera though! It was late at night.”

Rumours have been flying around that Michael and Sheridan are now officially a couple, but with the show’s strict guidelines against such things it is unlikely we will get any real confirmation prior to the show’s finale.

Hopefully their “close friendship” will lead to impressive results for them both at the final weigh in.

[Source: Woman’s Day via the TWoP Forums]

The Sunshine Coast Daily is reporting today that evicted rulebreaker John Morrall has confirmed that he will not be invited to attend the Biggest Loser Finale.

“One of the things I visualised when I was meditating was me at the finale looking fantastic.

“I had my whole picture, rocking up on the Harley Davidson, jeans, boots, a cool belt buckle and a great t-shirt, walking down and looking at myself.

“That was my visualisation and they’ve just said to me that ‘you won’t be invited to the finale’ and that knocked me on my backside,” John said.

There’s been some confusion around the forums as to whether he would be allowed on stage at the finale and it seems clear now that he will not.

Personally, I think this was a good decision. While it would have been interesting to have seen his “final” results, by putting him up on stage the show would essentially be saying, “This is the sort of result you can get if you completely ignore doctor’s orders and put your life in jeopardy.”

Also, John reveals an interesting glimpse of what life is like inside the White House. Apparently certain folks behave very differently when they have a camera on them…

“I’ll say this, I was never a rebel but I was true to who I am and that was the most important thing from day one.

“But with a lot of the other people in the house, the minute the camera goes on them they are very different people, there’s some great little snakes in there,” he said.

But at least the snakes are heeding the free medical advice, John.

[Source: Sunshine Coast Daily]

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Following on from the interview with Sam in the SMH yesterday, two other papers have interviews with their local participants. The Sunshine Coast Daily has John Morrall while the Central Western Daily has Michael Sandford.

Both articles are worth a read for different reasons. John’s reveals a little more about why he applied to be on the show, and like so many others before him it’s due to a recent health scare:

John, who has had heart problems and recently had a bit of a heart scare, said he was motivated by his wife and family to shed the kilos and improve his health.

“The fear on her face is a picture I will carry with me for the rest of my life,” he said.

The article goes on to say that his daughter is expecting a baby soon and he’d like to get his life in order. He was also recently spotted in Maroochydore looking “decidedly slimmer and tanned”. So it sounds like, inside the house or not, John’s on the right track.

The piece on Michael is interesting for another reason. I’m sure we’re all well aware that the show is edited down for time considerations, so while we only saw maybe a half hour in total of the contestants being put through their paces in last night’s show, they were actually exercising for two or more hours.

Many have been assuming that because we didn’t see anybody quit during this session that nobody did give up. Not so, says Michael:

“No matter what [the trainers] threw at me I did it. A lot of things I did would, and did, make a lot of people quit but I never did. I never quit once.”

So it seems like, at least according to him, some folks did give up at some points during the selection process. I expect the producers had good reason not to show this, perhaps saving the “breakdown” for one of the Commando’s sessions, to reinforce his toughness?

At any rate, it’s interesting to sort of peek behind the curtain like this from time to time.

The rest of the story is just about Michael wanting to get his confidence back and perhaps get back into his local first grade footy team, so he can play with his brothers again. With Shannan’s background in footy training, you have to figure that’s a match made in heaven!

To read the rest of the articles, click here for John’s story or click here for Michael’s.