[TarasV]

It would be nice to see a longer period before they start voting people off, but I guess if they go there and it motivates the change in lifestyle they can do it at home. If they learn heaps they will use it and reach their goals.

For it to be entertaining they have to build a relationship within their team and then with the audience and by them having people eliminated gives drama and emotional connection. If it were a place where they had paid to be educated and trained then nobody would go until the end, but making it into a game allows the whole thing to change and remain interesting for our ever so short attention spans. You can tell that for the producers it is all about getting audiences emotionally invested and then tearing their hearts out only to have a big finale with dramatic changes which restore our desire to see more.

Neither by smallest weight lose or largest lose, therefore being the biggest threat to the winning of the game, seems fair. Personal connections and friendship based alliances seem equally unfair. However very few things in life are fair and the current method seems to be the most entertaining.

Lastly I suppose the dwindling numbers allow the trainers and the contestants to focus and spend more time working out.