About the show.
A game show about diets that refuses to pretend one of them is magic, and refuses to treat the people playing it as content.
Every diet has a champion who swears by it and a critic who swears at it. DietWars puts them in the same season and lets the scales settle it.
Why this format
Australians are handed a new best diet every few months, usually by someone selling it. The argument never resolves because it is always one person's testimonial against another's. Put seven camps on the same schedule, the same scoring and the same scales for twelve weeks, and it becomes something you can actually watch a result come out of.
The result is not the point on its own. The point is what the season shows on the way there: that the plan somebody can live with beats the plan that looks best on paper, and that the hardest week is never week one.
How it is made
Contestants are drafted into camps and coached on their camp's eating plan by qualified professionals. Every camp faces the same challenges and the same weigh-in, scored as a percentage of starting body weight. Camps that fall behind face elimination. The last camp standing takes the title, and an individual title is awarded alongside it.
Duty of care, in writing
Weight-loss television has a history. These are the commitments the format is built on, not the ones added afterwards.
Screened, then supported
Contestants are health screened before casting is confirmed, then guided and monitored by qualified health professionals for the whole season.
Sensible targets
Scoring is percentage of starting body weight, and the show celebrates sustainable loss and habits that last rather than dangerous extremes.
Anyone can step back
At any point, for any reason, with no questions asked and no penalty. Welfare beats ratings whenever the two disagree.
Support on screen
The Butterfly Foundation support line appears in the show and on every page of this site, because some viewers need it more than they need the scoreboard.
Where the show is up to
DietWars is an original Australian format in active development. Casting interest is open nationwide so we can start meeting people, and we are in conversation with production and distribution partners.
There is no broadcaster announcement and no air date yet. When there is, this page will say so. We would rather be straight with the people putting their hand up than sell them a season that does not exist.