Kicking. Squealing.
My girlfriend recently informed me about a website called Diet Bet which is playing off of the recent trends set by weight loss game shows like The Biggest Loser.
With Diet Bet, participants deposit a set amount of money into a pool. The company takes a cut, but any participants who lose 4% of their body weight over 28 days are considered winners. All winners split up the money in the pool.
One of the FAQs asks about the advantages that people of certain ages, genders, and body sizes have. The company provides a generic answer about the game leveling the playing field despite not being perfect.
These types of competitions seem primed for take off so it will be interesting to see how they adapt to such differences. At sites like Diet Bet, we might expect groups to begin setting rules for entry based upon sex, age, or even lifestyle.
It’s been noted that 70% of the winners on The Biggest Loser are men. The reasons for this particular gender gap are several fold: men are more competitive, men have better self-control when it comes to food, and men have more muscle mass and this helps them burn fat. If they go into weight-loss mode they have an advantage over women.
All in all, though, it’s a pretty interesting idea. One reason I’m mentioning it here is that I expect the company to address this sex difference and then I expect some feminist website to become outraged in one way or the other about the change.
“men have better self-control when it comes to food”
Speak for your self, bud.
Monetary incentivization is always a great way to get people to do something. Kudos to the guys who figured out how to do this, and take a cut of fat people dropping pounds.
“My girlfriend recently informed me about a website called Diet Bet which is playing off of the recent trends set by weight loss game shows like The Biggest Loser.”
You want to tell us something about your girlfriend, Chuck?
Also, how do they confirm that people are telling the truth about their weight loss?
Ontario opposition leader, Tim Hudak just proposed making student loans dependant on high school grades.
If monetary rewards help with losing weight, think they can help with school?
you manosphere misogynist’s are all the same…
donchya know it’s kyriarchical misogyny that cause people to be overweight…
if you weigh 180, 4% would be 7.2lb — easy enough to lose just through dehydration (and pre-hydration at weigh-in)
youngreact:
“You want to tell us something about your girlfriend, Chuck?”
if she entered one of these competitions she’d have to lose at least 4.8 pounds in order to win the bet. she’s *that* fat.
“if she entered one of these competitions she’d have to lose at least 4.8 pounds in order to win the bet. she’s *that* fat.”
Damn – get rid of that whale, dude.
Good idea -what’s interesting is that this is.very similar to gambling – ” the house takes its cut.” And most people wil lose. Although it SEEMS like they won’t.
Completely off topic… When I read this I couldn’t help but think of your post regarding the NY Times hit pieces on the N Dakota gas fields.
http://economy.money.cnn.com/2013/02/14/tesla-elon-musk-new-york-times/?hpt=hp_t2
all this negative focus on body image…
some people might begin to use laxcatives…
http://qkme.me/3t07am
The issue is that there’s no coherent, sensible way for feminists to sensibly grapple with inherent differences between the genders, or statistical probabilities. We can speculate as to why, but in any case, you get one of two responses:
- Special conditions for women, because they have different needs, responses, motivations and outcomes
- Brutal equality because even talking about differences is misogynist/sexist / something -ist we don’t know but it’s inherently bad to even think like this.
Often, the same person will argue on both sides of this debate simultaneously, making the ultimate repsonse incoherent.
But this isn’t the point. It’s a cult-like need to Fight the System!, and the actual intellectual consistency and coherency of arguments from the feminist side are usually irrelevant. It’s power-grabbing and complaining; nothing more. Arguments are a convenience, and when unnecessary, can be discarded.
This is why the few coherent, thinking feminists who stick to reasoning out issues are largely considered unnacceptable because they’re “opaque”, “elitist” or “inconsiderate of wider issues in gender relations”.
Natch.