Plus-Size Women, Reality TV: Is the Exposure Always Good?

Watching a 33-year-old mom clad in a Catholic school girl's uniform gyrate her perhaps size 16 hips on a stripper pole begs many questions, but none (no pun intended) bigger than this:

Bachelor Luke Conley(C) celebrates with the remaining six women after elimination on an all-new episode of More To Love.

(Courtesy Patrick Wymore/FOX)

Why, and for what purpose?

The answer seems easy on the surface. The mom in question was, at the time, a contestant on "Dance Your A** Off," the Oxygen network's uber successful reality competition in which overweight contenders attempt to shimmy and shake off extra pounds. An amalgam of "The Biggest Loser" and "So You Think You Can Dance," "Dance Your A** Off" debuted on Oxygen in June, setting a network record of 1.3 million total viewers with its first episode.

Simple enough, right? She wanted to lose weight and reveled in doing it for the cameras; Oxygen figured out a formula to boost ratings.

But once you get beyond the superficial, figuring out the "why and for what purpose" can get more murky. The question doesn't just apply to "Dance Your A** Off," which, to be fair, features male and female contestants -- it goes for most of the small but growing genre of overweight-and-on-camera reality TV, notably "More to Love," the new FOX series in which full-figured women compete for the heart of a similarly hefty bachelor.

Related

'Reality Hell': Reality TV Hater's Dream?

'The Bachelorette' Chooses Ed Swiderski

WATCH: Bachelorette Finally Finds Love

For Sally Ann Salsano, the executive producer of both shows, the goal is altruistic.

"These shows are about teaching you to be OK with yourself," she said. "That you don't have to be stick thin to find love or be healthy, and getting those things doesn't have to be a miserable process."

Plus-size ladies surround "More to Love's" bachelor, Luke Conley, at a mixer.

Others, like Samhita Mukhopadhyay, editor of the blog Feministing.com, wonder if audiences absorb a different message.

"These people put themselves on display in a way that viewers just eat up. Sometimes I cringe because it seems so humiliating for the person," she said. "It speaks to the general anxiety of fat women: You're a slob, you can't find love, you hate yourself."

It all boils down to the question of "fatsploitation": Do shows like "More to Love," "Dance Your A** Off" and other similarly premised reality TV competitions exploit the size of their female contenders for entertainment value?