Survivor star sparks concerns with 'skeletal' appearance

Survivor contestants are renowned for shedding a fair bit of weight while competing thanks to a restricted diet and gruelling challenges.

This season however, fans are wondering how far the weight loss can be allowed to go on before someone reigns it in, with Baden Gilbert at the centre of the controversy in the wake of model Sam Schoers’s revelation that she lost 8kg in 16 days while on the show.

Baden has always cut a slim figure, but his current appearance even in the Survivor context has not escaped fans’ notice.

The 23-year-old is the show’s youngest contestant, and defied expectation to land a spot in the show’s top 5.

Fans are wondering if he will last however, as he appears to lose more weight by the day, culminating in some shocking footage of the PHD student on last night’s elimination episode.

Fans weigh in on Twitter

Some fans took the situation lightly enough, given Survivor’s track record of spitting out emaciated contestants on the other side.

Others expressed a slightly more worried take on the Adelaide man’s state of health.

“They really need to feed Baden,” one fan argued.

“They should just vote out Baden just so he can get a feed,” another agreed.

The contestant has however always been on the thin side, and even referenced his lightweight frame before the season, saying it gave him the element of surprise.

“I will also be seen as an underdog,” he told fans ahead of the series.

“In this game particularly people will see me as someone who is pale, lanky, a bit nerdy, skinny all these sorts of things, but I’m happy for them to underestimate me, I have no problem with that at all.”

Channel 10 has been contacted for comment.

A recipe, or diet, for disaster

Baden isn’t the only contestant to shed a jaw-dropping amount of weight on the show.

Last year Australian Olympic freestyle skier Lydia Lassila told Yahoo Lifestyle she dropped 7kg in one month on the show and revealed the shocking diet responsible.

“It’s basically rations of rice and beans,” she explained at the time. “So you get 800 calories a day, then on top of that whatever you can find, so whether it’s coconut or paw paw.

“I was catching a lot of fish and crab and I was trying to eat actually as much coconut as I could because it has a higher fat content.”

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