I’m not going to lie, I’m a reality show fiend and my favorite network to watch Reality TV is TLC. I can’t get enough of Outdaughtered, I am Jazz, and Kate Plus Eight, however over the past few years I have seen TLC promoting unhealthy lifestyles and I cannot stand behind them anymore.

Shows like 90 Day Fiancé, Counting On (A spinoff of 19 Kids and Counting), and My Big Fat Fabulous Life are key offenders of promoting unhealthy lifestyles and relationships.

90 Day Fiancé is exactly how it sounds, the series follows couples who have to get married within ninety days of their partner coming to the United States. These couples often meet online and fall in love with each other but, sad to say, more often than not the non-American is just using the American to get a Green Card. The American getting used part isn’t what necessarily bothers me the most, it’s that they have 90 days to get married. It’s been proven that the infatuation stage of a relationship lasts from six months to two years, so these couples rush into marriage don’t have time to get out of the infatuation stage.

Some of the cases on the show work out fine and the couple ends up living happily-ever-after but there are times when it goes horribly wrong and that’s what happened to Danielle and Mohammad. Danielle and Mohammed were an odd match, to begin with, but it goes further than that; after getting married Mohammad moved out and stopped having sex with Danielle due to her *ahem* feminine odor; from there Danielle and his marriage got annulled. There is a petition going around to get Mohammed deported but it is said that he is going back to his country anyways. I wouldn’t recommend anyone to get married after three months but I definitely wouldn’t recommend it if the person you're marrying is from out of the country (as xenophobic as that sounds).

Counting On isn’t as bad as 90-day Fiancé but it does have some toxic undertones to it. This show is a spin-off of 19 Kids and Counting which premiered after 19 Kids got canceled due to the Josh Duggar scandal. It follows the older Duggar children and their adventures in marriage, parenthood, and courtship, which sounds great but when that's the basis of the whole show it gets annoying. The Duggar’s seem to have one goal in life: getting married and popping out kids.

Don’t get me wrong that's not a terrible goal because that’s a huge goal in my life but I also want to graduate college and have a decent career. One of the older girls had a serious interest in midwifery at one point before she got married but from what I have seen she didn’t continue with it. After her wedding, she started focusing on having children as soon as possible. Jill, Jessa, Jinger, and Joy-Anna are all married with Joseph engaged. This show is not only cringy to watch but also sad because the only hopes and dreams of the Duggar kids is to get married and have more kids. Not go to college and get a degree but instead to extend their already huge family tree.

I believe the title of the worst TV show TLC has ever aired would have to go to My Big Fat Fabulous Life. This show follows the life of obese women Whitney Thore who teaches dance classes and owns a dance class called “Big Girl Dance Class”. It’s not that Whitney's obesity is what bothers me, it’s the fact that she complains about almost everything. Her attitude is so dreadful that me, as a viewer, can feel the negativity flowing from my TV screen into my front room. If your life is “fabulous” then why feel the need to complain about almost everything. Another thing that bothers me is that Whitney blames all of her weight issues on having Poly-Cystic Ovarian Syndrome which is a hormone disordered that causes enlarged ovaries and cysts to form on the outer edge. PCOS is often blamed for weight gain but not in that large of a quantity.

If Whitney was eating healthy and doing everything to maintain her weight I would give her the benefit of the doubt but she isn't. Her trainer broke it off with her because he found fast food containers in her car when she was explicitly told not to eat fattening things. I may be "fat shaming" but something needs to be said because little girls watching this could pick up unhealthy habits and blame their issues on something else instead of taking responsibility. We live in a world where body positivity is huge, and while I do believe it’s a good thing (at times), I think it could be potentially harmful if obese people start ignoring their health.

TLC is a great network with a lot of educational programs but I believe that some of those programs could be spreading harmful and toxic messages. It has been proven that people often absorb what is on TV and other forms of media so if TV shows keep spreading these destructive messages there will be a definitive consequence. It’s not just TLC that is doing this, many networks have at least one show that is dispersing the wrong message. As adult role models and parent’s, we need to teach our kids and the rest of the community that what they see on TV may not be as acceptable as they think.