All Your Most Pressing Health Questions About ‘Survivor,’ Asked and Answered
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Survivor is, by design, an extremely onerous reality competition, particularly where people’s brains and bodies are concerned. (That’s more or less why there’s a million-dollar prize awarded to whoever wins.) In the show’s “new era,” which began a few years back in season 41, players are no longer given rations of rice—meaning they have to forage for all of their food, or, occasionally, compete to earn it—and they can have their flint taken away if their tribe loses a challenge, meaning they’re not even reliably able to make fires at their camps. Given that the conditions of island livin’ are so extreme and the contestants have to compete in physically demanding challenges on very little sleep or sustenance, the Survivor-loving freaks at SELF, myself chief among them, have a lot of questions about how the show affects players’ health.
We’ve already covered important matters of digestion (a.k.a. how contestants handle pooping on Survivor) but as an ardent fan of the show, I still had so many other questions: Are you allowed tampons? What about prescription medications? And what happens if you get plastered on red wine at the Merge Feast when you’ve eaten only scant quantities of coconut innards for weeks?
Luckily, a three-time contestant and a competitor from season 46 (which is currently airing on CBS) was willing to speak to SELF about some of the grisly physical and mental particulars of outwitting, outplaying, and outlasting.
What do people do if they get their period on the island?
I’m absolutely certain I could kick ass on Survivor despite my lack of any kind of training, minimal camping experience, and deep-seated physical and psychological dependence on Kit Kat bars. The only thing that gives me pause: What happens if you get your period? (Mine is torrential.) Does the show’s medical crew provide tampons, or do you have to, like, fashion a crude menstrual belt out of palm fronds and your buff?
The answer to both questions is no, Jess Chong, who was voted out after five days on the island in season 46, tells SELF. “I got my period on my first day! It was awful,” she says, adding that she had to figure out how to wash out her clothes in full view of the cameras.
The show doesn’t provide players with period products, but people get to bring their own, and they have access to them anytime in a personal box of basic medical supplies kept at their camp (more on this in a bit). As Chong explains, “Those of us who menstruate get to pack whatever we want. I’ve been an ardent Diva Cup user for decades, and I brought both a Diva Cup and tampons so that I could have options.” (Perhaps there’s a case to be made for Kit Kat bars as essential period management supplies too?)
Are Survivor contestants allowed to take medication while filming?
On top of dealing with her period, Chong was struggling to adjust to the ways that the intense environment exacerbated her ADHD symptoms. While some fans speculated that she had been denied access to her medication, Chong wasn’t taking anything to manage her ADHD during filming and says she isn’t sure if a stimulant like Adderall or another prescription would be allowed.
Benjamin “Coach” Wade, one of Survivor’s most iconic competitors, appeared on three seasons that are particularly big among die-hard fans (Tocantins, Heroes vs. Villains, and South Pacific). He tells SELF that, during his runs on the show, he was sometimes able to take medications—but not always. In that personal medical box that you’re allowed to keep at camp, people also stash preapproved drugs: “[Production] checks it out, and you turn it in beforehand,” he explains. For him, that was hit or miss. “I had a prescription for allergies, and for some reason, they didn’t let it in the game [the third time]—the first two times, they did.” He says that certain meds just aren’t kosher, even if you take them regularly at home: “They won’t let Ambien or anything like that in there. Or probably Xanax—that’s a big no-no.” (CBS declined to comment about whether prescribed stimulants, sleeping pills, or benzodiazepines are permitted on the show.)
What about OTC meds, like if you have a headache or are vomiting? Coach laughed when this question was raised—“Give me a break!”—but says that contestants received supplements: “When I did it, they had a calcium tablet and a multivitamin.”
Do players’ teeth get really mossy and disgusting?
Absolutely they do! Apparently, the options when it comes to plaque removal are more or less the same materials contestants use to build their shelters. “You take a palm frond, the stem of it or the leaf, and you just get a little thin sliver, and you poke it between your teeth. It’s kind of like floss,” Coach says, adding that he also did his best to brush with “a small stick.”
Chong shredded a plant rather than using a twig, she says: “I personally chomped on softer pieces of bamboo to create a little ‘brush’ out of the stem and used that to scrub my teeth.”
Alternatively, Coach says, “A lot of us used our fingernails.”
Can castaways use sunscreen and bug spray?
On the show, you never see people putting on SPF or blasting themselves with insect repellent, but in a tropical environment that often has extreme weather, skipping either seems straight-up dangerous. (The show currently films in Fiji, but in previous years, including during the seasons featuring Coach, it took place in different locations.)
These products are, in fact, provided by production and kept close at hand at camp. “Sunscreen and bug spray are always available inside our medical box, which is situated far enough away from our shelter that you can never see us there,” Chong says, because the show doesn’t break the fourth wall in that way.
“The cameras don’t go there—it’s like your personal space,” Coach explains. That was a good thing for Chong, who says that she was so disoriented from not sleeping that she once bug-sprayed herself directly in the face.
Coach says that, during his tenure, contestants used a hybridized product for both critter and sun protection. “On all three [of my] seasons, they gave us ‘bug and sun’—it's like a combination. It was, ‘Jack of all trades, master of none.’” He explains that the product protected him at least a little from sunburn, but bugs still feasted on him and others on the show. “Every season, you see people with massive bites on their legs,” he says. “When I slept in Tocantins, I could cover up most of my body, except for my hands—I would put ’em in my pants pocket, and there were two inches where [my skin] wasn’t covered. There’d literally be a hundred bites when I woke up—and that was slathering on the bug and sun.”
Are people worried about encountering toxic plants or venomous animals?
If you’re living among wild animals and God knows what kind of plant life, it would make sense to be on high alert. In terms of anything hazardous getting into the drinking water, Chong says there are protections in place: “Production provides potable water inside the well—the container was always filled and had a lid so that nasty creepy crawlies couldn’t get in,” she says.
As for things that might bite or poison you lurking around camp, Coach says that there were stern warnings about the beasts and vegetation. He says he remembers being told, “If you touch this flower that looks like a big dandelion and you touch your eyes, you’re permanently blind. There’s acid bugs out here, and if they land on your skin you don’t swat at ’em, because they’ll burn through the skin.” (CBS declined to comment about whether the show offered these instructions to contestants.) Coach also says that castaways had to take a pill for elephantiasis, which is typically spread via infected mosquitoes and can lead to permanent and often painful enlargement of your body parts. (CBS declined to comment on all of this, but contestants do go to “Survivor school” before appearing on the show, getting a crash course in basic island safety, building a fire, and the things they can and cannot eat.)
Precautions aside, people are still sleeping outside, and that sometimes means encountering unexpected visitors. “There were snakes,” Coach says. “I woke up one night and there was a snake crawling across the roof. I can’t believe nobody died—and you don’t get on a helicopter, because you’re literally dead within 30 minutes. Somebody almost got bit. There was one in our camp that Erinn [Lobdell, who appeared on Survivor: Tocantins] was like, ‘Oh, what is this? There’s a snake right here.’” So, uh, what do you do in that scenario? “They called in the snake handler, and he was freaked out—he removed it.” (CBS declined to comment or verify whether this happened as described, or at all.)
What happens if you drink alcohol at the Merge Feast or when you win a reward?
A lot of the edible rewards contestants have the opportunity to win look nasty—congealed, bloated pizza slices; a croissant that looks like it got kicked by a giant—but people are still understandably elated about the prospect of eating anything that didn’t fall off of a palm tree. These prizes occasionally include wine, beer, and, in this season, massive goblets of sinister-looking cocktails provided by Applebee’s. While this sounds great in theory, I have to wonder: How are they not plastered, puking, and in hungover agony, given that they’re all underfed and possibly dehydrated?
Chong wasn’t around for long enough to find out firsthand, but Coach has an unconfirmed theory: “I feel like they gave us near beer on one of the rewards, because none of us felt the slightest bit [drunk],” he says—even though people were definitely drinking. “I think that it’s really, really low alcohol content. That’s my opinion—I don’t think anybody else will say that.” (Again, CBS declined to comment.)
That’s his hunch, he says, because by the time you’re winning a reward challenge that includes drinking, your tolerance is probably a lot lower than it usually would be if you habitually have bevs at home. “If I don’t drink for a week, I know exactly how alcohol is going to affect me. We’re out there without alcohol for a month,” he says. “Medically, physiologically—we should have one drink and just be smashed, but you don’t really see that. So, I’m not sure what they’re giving us, because there’s no labels on anything. But I would have to say that it’s not a very high alcohol content. I’ve not personally witnessed somebody getting completely smashed and then having a terrible hangover the next day.”
How do people mentally deal with the various trials (and Tribals) Survivor puts them through?
“Given that I was only on the island for five days, my body was fine,” Chong explains. “Emotionally…that’s another question.” She says that there’s only so much you can do to mentally prepare in advance, and for her, that was especially true as it related to her ADHD. She says she thought carefully about her symptoms before heading to Fiji, but some were unpredictable in the moment. “I wish I had thought more about how to stop my mind from wandering and ruminating late at night when I was trying to sleep; I don’t think I slept at all,” she explains.
Contestants have access to mental health support during filming, after they get booted, and as they settle back into their day-to-day lives. “Survivor provides us with a counselor who meets with us one-on-one on location and quite frequently when we come home,” Chong says. “I have found my sessions very helpful.” Coach says he was also really grateful for the counseling the show extended, and that it was quite beneficial.
Still: How do you not get turned around by what viewers have to say about your time on the show—especially given that you’re under a lot of pressure, and, as I’ve learned, are fashioning a toothbrush out of sticks, spraying yourself in the face with insect repellent during your scarce moments of privacy, and emptying your Diva Cup into the ocean? “I’m a really strong individual. I have a great life. I ran back to that life as soon as Survivor happened,” Coach says. “It’s the adventure of a lifetime, but something that is finite. If your identity becomes the show that you’ve been on you’re leading yourself to psychological disaster.”
In terms of anything he wishes he did differently for the sake of his well-being? “Don’t eat an entire package, much less two, of Double Stuf Oreos when you come back,” Coach says. He made this mistake after his first season, and says this—not the snake or the bug bites or the lack of food—was one of the most grueling physical aspects of the show.
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Originally Appeared on SELF
