On last night's episode of "The Biggest Loser," the mellow/creepy Dr. Rob Huizenga told a 27-year-old contestant that she had the health and fitness level of a 57-year-old, which made her cry. Huizenga also told a 51-year-old that she had the body of a 75-year-old. Fun times.
Want to know your own biological age? "The Biggest Loser" is offering to sell you a personalized "Know Your Number" HealthScore kit for the low, low price of $89.99. You just have to bleed into a kit, drop it in the mail, and wait for three weeks!
Or you could just go to RealAge.com and find out the age of your body for free. In minutes. Sure, RealAge doesn't bother to test your blood, and yes, the site makes money by selling your contact information to pharmaceutical companies so they can spam you to death. But it's free, and it's run by the guy in the scrubs on Oprah! (Just remember not to click on the buttons allowing RealAge and its partners to send you any junk mail. And to be safe, set up a new email account before registering with RealAge.)
"The Biggest Loser" is already raking in massive amounts of dough by drastically marking up everything in sight -- from calorie counters to fitness DVDs to compilations of shitty workout music. For example, the BodyBugg ("as seen on 'The Biggest Loser'!") retails for over $280, while the much sleeker and all-around awesomer (though not "Biggest Loser"-endorsed) FitBit sells for $99. (Thanks, Karin Tracy, for pointing me to FitBit.)
Screw you, "The Biggest Loser." We may spend our Tuesday nights gawking at enormous people as they work out and cry, but we're not such losers that we're incapable of comparison shopping.
