TLC orders obese family reality show

By Nellie Andreeva

The network behind "Little People, Big World" is taking on another group of people who don't quite fit in the regular society.

TLC has ordered a six-episode series that chronicles the lives of a morbidly obese family facing everyday realities.

The half-hour docu series, tentatively titled "One Big Happy Family," hails from RDF USA, whose senior vp development and current Mike Duffy created the show.

He drew on his own experience.

"Growing up, we had a problem with obesity, and I know how it feels to be fat," Duffy said.

Duffy's inspiration is his father who, at age 60, lost 200 pounds.

"That changed the entire dynamic of my family," he said. Obesity is always is a family issue, but "watching television, it occurred to me that there is a void for programming where we deal with obesity in the family unit," he added.

Duffy, who is exec producing "One Big Happy Family" with RDF's Chris Coelen and showrunner Julia Silverton, set out to find a family who wanted to make a change in their lives and found it just outside of Charlotte, N.C.

The family to be chronicled on the show consists of a 40-year-old man weighing 340 pounds; his 35-year-old wife, who is close to 400 pounds; and their 330- and 340-pound teenage kids.

The documentary will tell each of their stories in first-person, with a special attention on the children, a boy and a girl.

"High school is hard enough to deal with -- imagine what it would be like to be morbidly obese," Duffy said.

He dismissed suggestions that the series might be exploitative.

"This is a very loving family," he said. "They are dedicated to losing the weight because they communicate as well as love each other so much."

But in trying to drop the pounds, they will rely on each other.

"This is not a game show where contestants have TV trainers and obesity specialists everyday as they are competing for a $250,000 prize," Duffy said, referring to NBC's popular reality series "The Biggest Loser."

He compared "One Big Happy Family" to "Little People, Big World."

" 'Little People, Big World' is about little people living in a big world. This is about big people living in a little world -- fat people living in a skinny world," Duffy said.