I got a chuckle from one fan’s “tribute” to the show some of us love to hate: The Biggest Loser.

Thank you. Thank you for publicly humiliating yourself so that I have something to do for an hour on Tuesday nights. I am forever grateful to have the opportunity to watch you and your fellow heffalumps vie for the chance to be named “The Biggest Loser” by taking part in ridiculous “challenges” while managing to burst in to tears at least 10 times an episode.

My main problem with the show this year (aside from the episodes that show people pushing themselves to the point of injury) has been putting the men and women on different teams. I’m amazed the women have won any of the weigh-ins, because there’s an inherent inequality even though we’re talking percentage weight loss rather than actual pounds.

I’ve been meaning to find more references for why this is so, but this one will have to do for now.

Myth: Men and women have an equally hard time losing weight.

Truth: Men lose weight more easily than women, whether through diet or exercise. That’s because men tend to be fat in their chests and bellies. And upper-body fat comes off far easier than lower-body fat.

I will make a point to find out more about this. But it’s the same flawed science that has folks using the BMI rather than weight as a measure of fitness. It may be better than weight, but BMI doesn’t have a way of accounting for muscle (since it is basically a ratio of your weight over your height squared).

So BMI does not measure body fat:

Two people can have the same BMI, but a different percent body fat. A bodybuilder with a large muscle mass and a low percent body fat may have the same BMI as a person who has more body fat because BMI is calculated using weight and height only.

Anyways, I’m finding it hard to root for any of the individual women on TBL. But I really hate seeing them at this disadvantage.