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"Huge" Season Finale, or Is ABC Family Trying to Kill Our Children?

Until the last two minutes of the season finale, I've been enjoying the first season of Huge, the ABC Family show about a group of teenagers at a summer weightloss camp. Now I want all ten hours of my life back....

Here are some things I've liked about the show:

• The main character, Wil (Wilhemina), when ordered in the first episode to strip down to her bathing suit for the "weigh-in tent', performed a defiant burlesque bump-n-grind in front of the whole camp.
• Unlike many of the kids who want to be at weightloss camp, Wil was forced to attend by her luxury-chain-gym owning parents and has declared it her mission to gain weight at camp. I always admire the batshit pluckiness of teenage rebellion.
• Wil decorates her bunk with a "screw body facism" sign spelled out with body parts cut from women's magazines. It's so Sassy magazine!
• Wil sneaks a bunch of food into camp and sells it in the bathroom. It's hilariously badass and Wil is a great model of the young American entrepreneur.
• The campers are thrilled to be part of a hook-up culture because for once they're all on an even playing field.
• The girls in Will's bunk spend a lot of time taking the quizzes in women's magazines. That's exactly how I spent the years 1992-1996.
• Shay, the camp trainer, is just like Sass - if Sass were no fun, totallly mean and didn't give out stickers.
• It's a show about being fifteen, about finding your identity, and trying to make the right choices for yourself. Being fifteen sucks, and being fifteen at a weightloss camp sucks even more.

Then there's Dr. Rand, whom I've been loathing more and more as the show goes on. Dr. Rand is former camper, former fat kid and current mess. She's hired her estranged father to be the camp's cook (yeah, great idea!) and is having an on-again off-again affair with the married head of the nearby tennis camp (that's where the skinny kids spend the summer). Dr. Rand gives uninspiring speeches around the campfire and she sounds cheesy when she gathers the kids in a circle to talk about their feelings. She also mopes a lot, which doesn't make me think, "Oh, she's so complicated!" It makes me think, "Oh, she's lame."

I was having a good time loving Will and the campers and only mildly hating Dr. Rand, and then this INSANE conversation occurred in the last two minutes of finale:

Wil: What were you like when you were fat?

Dr. Rand: I hated myself.

Will: And now?

Dr. Rand: Less.

Wil: That's it? That's the big improvement? You hate yourself less?

Dr. Rand: Yes.

If I were a superhero, at this moment I would have leapt through my television and the lightbeams from my hand would have pushed Dr. Rand into the lake. Only a psychopath tells a fifteen-year-old girl, "Yes, the point of health and fitness is to make your life suck a little less." !!!!!!! Outrage! I wanted to grab Wil and say, "You're fifteen. Your main responsiblity right now is to take care of yourself. This lady may be skinny, but she is a hot tranny mess. Don't listen to her. P.S. You're getting pretty decent at shooting hoops and you're great at writing songs." Then I would leave Wil a Sassletic dance party mix and a von Hottie calendar and disappear into the night.

I used to think Huge was a harmless coming-of-age story, but now I see that the entire childhood obesity epidemic can be linked back to the ABC network. After all, if our life is going to suck no matter how much we commit to our health and fitness, and all the authority figures around us have the one thing we want (a skinny body) and they're still miserable, why wouldn't a teenager eat 5,000 calories a day?

Oh wait, people, it's all good. If you go to the Huge website, there's information on eating disorders and a section with diet and exercise tips where we are encouraged to "Live HUGE!" Well, I don't know about you, but the prospect of my life sucking forever is totally inspiring me to exercise. As my fifteen-year-old self would say, "Not!"