“Primetime heavyweights” used to refer to the most popular shows in the evening lineup. Recently, it has become more literal, calling to mind the corpulent characters in popular plus-sized programming.

Shows like NBC’s “The Biggest Loser” and “More to Love” on FOX seem hopeful in making a presence for America’s plumper demographic.

Many would think that having these images on TV makes for a more diverse representation of real life. But the way these shows portray the overweight community is probably the worst fat joke of all time.

“(Overweight people) are depicted in two ways. They’re either the comic relief or the subject of pity,” said Jacqueline Carrigan, professor of sociology.

Instead of an accurate depiction of obesity, it’s the Battle of the Bulge. The programs seem to find the largest, most grotesque images of overweight Americans.

For viewers of these shows, “overweight” becomes manifest in out of control, massive belly rolls. Panting weight-loss contestants and tearful singles are becoming the faces of fat America.

“There is definitely still that stigma attached to being fat,” Carrigan said. “It’s assumed that there’s something wrong with being fat. (That fat is) something that people need to get rid of if they can.”

The goal is to fairly represent and shed light on the realities of the overweight community, but television shows are failing miserably.

For shows like “The Biggest Loser,” showing the contestants’ weights is imperative to illustrating the progress of their weight loss over the course of the show.

Shay Sorrells anticipated her experience as a contestant on the newest season of “The Biggest Loser.”

“Everyone is going to see everything that has passed my lips in a number right in front of the world,” she said in the video “Meet Shay” on NBC’s website.

Sorrells bursts into tears during her weigh-in after being told that she is the heaviest contestant ever weighed on the show.

But the waterworks aren’t closed for business just yet. Often reduced to tears, “The Biggest Loser” competitors are pushed, derided and scolded by fitness trainers Bob Harper and Jillian Michaels.

FOX’s “The Bachelor” spin off for full-figured singles, called, “More to Love,” is a similar disgrace.

As if the whole “fat people need love too” sob story wasn’t demeaning enough, the public comes to identify these people by a number. Apart from the standard name, age and occupation of the competing bachelorettes, these women’s height and weight measurements are also broadcast for the world to see.

The whole idea of making separate shows for overweight people is discriminating in itself. Why can’t shows let people of different shapes and sizes co-mingle?

Instead of this, television shows occasionally shove thin, bronzed women into an overly padded suit and prosthetic double chin to spend “a day in the life of a fat person.”

But real overweight people don’t get to take off the suit at the end of the day. It takes far more time and work than the minutes it takes to rip off a Velcro belly.

This is why people buy into the weight-loss show craze. We all wish that weight loss would happen overnight like it does on television.

If only we could drop a week’s worth of weight in an hour, like “The Biggest Loser” contestants do.

These shows may mean well. But the motivation they seek to spread is often lost in the humiliation they cause cast members and the false hope they instill in viewers.

It may take a while for network television to get it right, but it’s totally worth the wait.

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