Something HUGE is Happening!

Where else can you find overweight teens on TV playing basketball, grooming crushes, and wrestling with family problems?

by Fitsmi Staff Kath

For the first time ever, a TV show starring a cast of overweight teens has hit the air.  Yes, they're in fat camp (TBD how the plot will evolve into the back-to-school season - will the characters live in summer camp all year round?).  And yes a lot of the content revolves around food -- smuggled, denied, desired -- and body weight, which at least initially defines most of the characters.  But it also...doesn't.  And that's the beautiful thing about HUGE.

Finally we see overweight teens beyond their bodies, and enjoy that they all have diverse personalities and plotlines.  Their weight is originally shocking, especially in the first episode when the main character Will (played by Nikki Blonsky), at first loath to get her "before" picture taken in a bathing suit, zooms in the other direction and does an outrageous and angry strip tease.  But because everyone is fat (except for the counselors and the infuriatingly indecisive camp headmistress), the characters quickly emerge and take centerstage.  Fatness -- so scandalous at first -- becomes a background theme like any other, from the Korean War in M*A*S*H to the hospital in Grey's Anatomy.  And because this series is produced by the talented Winnie Holzman (Wicked, My So-Called Life, Once & Again) and daughter Savannah Dooley, it's better than the average teen soap on ABC Family.

If you've missed the first three HUGE episodes (Mondays, 9pm EST, on ABCFamily), you can watch recaps and the latest episode on the HUGE website.

While we agree with media critic and ShapingYouth blogger Amy Jussel when she says "I'm going give it more episodes before I FULLY 'weigh in'" (see her excellent analysis of HUGE's potential part one and part two), we're pretty pleased with HUGE so far.  Where else can you find overweight teens on TV playing basketball, grooming crushes, larping (kind of like a Dungeons+Dragons dramatic improv), wrestling with family problems, or doing yoga?

If you're tuned into HUGE, Fitsmi for Moms would love to know what you think.  Are you watching it with your teen?  Do you both have the same take on it?  Do you think the show is having a positive effect, or not?  Let us know what you think by sending an email to fitsmiformoms@fitsmi.com.

  Published July 15, 2010