Biggest Loser's Kai Hibbard Says Show Triggered Eating Disorder

June 25, 2010 — -- A former contestant on the hit weight loss show "The Biggest Loser" is claiming that the show's unhealthy practices led her to develop a life-threatening eating disorder.

Kai Hibbard, 31, was one of the final four contestants on NBC's "The Biggest Loser" in 2006, when the show was in its third season. While Hibbard appeared to be a poster child for the show, losing 118 pounds in just 12 weeks, she now says that she nearly died.

"I had no idea I had a problem," Hibbard told ABCNews.com. "When you spend four months surrounded by people who are all doing this to themselves, even if intellectually it seems wrong, you don't realize. You just think if they're doing it, I'm doing it."

And what she was doing was trying a number of techniques to shed weight at an alarming rate -- from fasting from dressing head to toe in multiple layers of clothing and working out in 100-degree temperatures.

"I'd put on a sports bra, a tank top, a t-shirt and a sweatshirt and then my spandex shorts, pants, sweatpants, a baseball cap and just zip it all up," she recalls. "I'd go to the gym, which had no air conditioner, and work out for two hours or as long as I could stand it without drinking water."

"Some people would drink water and just swish it around in their mouth and spit it out," said Hibbard. "But I couldn't do that, I knew I'd want to drink it."

Hibbard said that this was common practice for contestants in the hours leading up to the weigh-in, where whoever lost the least amount of weight that week would be sent home.

An NBC spokeswoman, in a written statement, responded to Hibbard's allegations.

"Contestants on 'The Biggest Loser' are closely monitored and medically supervised. The consistent health transformations of over 200 contestants through nine seasons of the program speak for themselves," said Jill Carmen of NBC.

But Hibbard said that there was nothing healthy about her body when she finished the show, significantly lighter than her original 265-pound frame.

"My hair had started to fall out in clumps, I had black circles around my eyes and I was covered in bruises," said Hibbard. "I hadn't had my period in three months and I could only sleep three hours a night."