Health & Fitness is is the 34th episode of the second season of The Suite Life of Zack and Cody. The Tipton is holding a Health and Fitness week. Cody encourages Chef Paolo to cook more healthily, while Zack's mother tries to get him to amend his eating habits and cut down on sugar. Meanwhile, both London and Maddie battle with eating disorders and body dysmorphia.
This episode provides the following tropes:
- Afraid of Needles: Moseby tries to escape the health check-up due to having a fear of needles.
- An Aesop: The key theme that each of the characters with subplots about their health learn is that there is no one-stop, quick way to being healthy, and it takes time, dedication, and patience to make yourself a healthier person.
- Carey comes to admit that making one's child eat healthy doesn't happen overnight. It's a gradual process that requires support.
- Paolo learns eating healthy should be done for one's own sake. Also, eating healthy food and eating delicious food doesn't have to be exclusive.
- It takes a while to sink in but London and Maddie eventually reconcile with their body image and learn to ignore people like Francesca who try to tear down their appearances. They also realize the extremes they went to - London starving herself and forcing herself to exercise constantly, and Maddie gorging herself on fattening foods - were the wrong way to approach any attempt to change their bodies.
- Big Eater: Paolo, to the max. Maddie forces herself to become one, starting off with a quadruple cheeseburger with fries and a shake, while London inverts this by starving herself and only eating baby carrots and water.
- Bittersweet Ending: The cast's subplots end on open-ended but hopeful notes. Zack still needs to work through his sweet addiction but Carey is now helping him work in moderation. Paolo is still unhealthy but is now finally listening to Cody's advice to better himself, even though he has a long way to go. Maddie gets a bit of the short end of the stick between her and London given she needs to lose the weight she gained from her gorging, but she and London still are finally more confident in themselves and their bodies even though there will probably be another Francesca one day to try to tear them down.
- Both Sides Have a Point: Zack’s eating habits result in valid points being made on both his and his mother's sides. Carey is right that Zack has an eating problem and shouldn’t be gorging himself as recklessly as he is. However, she ends up admitting that her forced cold turkey approach is a terrible idea and only tempts Zack to relapse more, and that she as his mother needs to support him in making a gradual change.
- Diet Episode: Both plots deal with this.
- Characterization Marches On: Carey is insistent on Zack's eating habits, while in the previous episode, she was shown to be quite a bad eater herself.
- Comfort Food: Paolo tries to indulge in this once Cody leaves him after giving him a chewing out. However, he's so ashamed of Cody's disappointment in him, as well as fearful of what Cody said about eating himself sick and living a reduced lifespan, that he quickly throws the food away.
- Didn't Think This Through: As explained in An Aesop, none of the characters realize at first that health and body issues are an ongoing process and not something that can be fixed overnight. Carey realizes she has to support Zack to gradually fix his eating addiction, Paolo realizes that eventually his eating habits will come back to haunt him, Maddie realizes she’s just going to make herself too fat and unhealthy to enjoy any new curves she gains, and London realizes that she’s not going to have any energy to do anything even if she loses any weight on her crash diet.
- For the Evulz: It's apparent that Francesca enjoys bullying her own friend London and Maddie about their weight struggles. Even when she sees London and Maddie resorting to unhealthy means to achieve their goal weight, she is gleefully remorseless and laughs at their struggle. This comes back to bite her really badly.
- Formerly Fit: Maddie eventually gains enough weight to rip her dress before the fashion show (but the show doesn’t actually provide any fat suit or anything to make her look any bigger than before).
- Going Cold Turkey: Carey quotes this trope nearly word for word when she realizes that forcing Zack to give up sweets immediately and totally just made an even bigger problem and exacerbated his addiction. This also applies to the other characters besides Paolo, who was getting patient support from Cody. London starves herself and works out constantly while Maddie eats a constant stream of fattening food to try to gain weight.
- Hartman Hips: When London is told her butt is too big, she looks in the mirror and imagines herself with gigantic hips that are nearly too wide to fit in the mirror frame’s view.
- Heartbreak and Ice Cream: Zack and Paolo find Maddie on the floor in the kitchen, wearily shoveling down ice cream. She’s become so tired of stuffing herself that she can barely bring herself to ask if she looks any curvier now.
- Hypocritical Humor: Downplayed with Moseby at the beginning of the episode. He sternly orders all his employees to submit themselves for a wellness check, but he himself keeps making excuses to try to get out of it. It's not because he doesn’t want to have his health checked, however; it's only because he’s afraid of needles.
- Informed Flaw: Maddie evidently gains enough weight to rip her dress, but the only indication is the ripping sound effect since Ashley Tisdale is not made to look any heavier than usual.
- Intentional Weight Gain: Maddie tries to gain more weight because she feels insecure about her body due to Francesca's comments about her being too skinny.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Francesca makes it her business to instill insecurities in Maddie and London about their body image (respectively that they're too skinny or too big). This leads to each girl adopting unhealthy means of gaining weight or losing weight. Later, this comes back to bite her when she's caught stuffing tissues down her chest to make herself look curvy, exposing her own body insecurity for the world to see. And it just happened because of London's fainting spell from losing weight.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: When Paolo snuck into the hotel's kitchen to sneak a snack, Cody calls him out on it. He tries asking the hungry chef what foods don't tempt him. Paolo momentarily says "Brussel Sprouts" before he goes on a tangent on how it can be made appetizing. Fed up with his friend's unhealthy lifestyle, he snaps:Cody: That's it! I was trying to get you to eat healthy because I want you to live a long time. But you want to eat yourself sick, go ahead! Just don't ask me to watch.
- Rousing Speech: Parodied. After Mr. Moseby tries to get the two to accept their bodies by giving them a heartwarming speech, the girls end up being unphased by the speech and hilariously continue to exercise and gorge on food moments later. Just goes to show that although you can give well-meaning advice to people, it won’t always help someone instantly.
- Sweet Tooth: Zack's sugar addiction becomes a major plot point, after Carey decides that enough is enough. Paolo is no slouch either.
- Very Special Episode: This episode tackled the issue of eating disorders(though not in a realistic fashion), as shown when London and Maddie struggled with anorexia and binge eating when convinced that they needed to change their bodies in order to fit in their dresses for the charity fashion show.
- Weight Woe: Played straight with London, inverted with Maddie, who tries to gain weight because she thinks of herself as too skinny.
- You Are Fat: When Maddie’s dress rips due to her apparent weight gain, Francesca taunts her that she gained curves in the wrong places while motioning to her sides and stomach.
