Archive for March, 2008

Tonight on The Biggest Loser Nicola will be sent home from the elimination because everyone loves Alison.

Well, okay, I don’t actually know that yet, but come on, is anyone really expecting any other result, honestly?
Cosi will vote for Alison as he won’t want to vote for Nicola due to his alliance with her.
Garry will vote for Alison because he, too, won’t want to vote for Nicola.
Sam, Kirsten and Michelle will all vote for Nicola, as they are all friendly with Alison and Michelle flat out dislikes Nicola.

Bryce is the only real wildcard, in that he might choose to vote “strategically” for Alison instead of Nicola. This is extremely unlikely.

However, even if he does, that pushes it to a tie, meaning the person with the lowest weightloss percentage for the week goes home.

And that’s Nicola!

Want to see if I’m right? Read on…
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Tonight on The Biggest Loser weigh-in rolls around again, this time it’s every fatty for themselves as they weigh in for the first time outside their teams!

Also, we find out who won the challenge from Friday night.

And theeeeeen? Bob and Jillian come back and not everyone is happy to see them, or so Mr Voiceover Man says.

And theeeeeeeen? We catch up with Nicole and Carrianne to see how they’re doing outside the house?

And theeeeeeeeeeeeen? You have to read after the break…
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Tonight on The Biggest Loser the Fatties and the “ex”-Fatties participate in a huge challenge – pulling buses!

Looks like there’ll be two buses, one pairing will pull each bus.

Would you like to know more?
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Tonight on The Biggest Loser ex-contestants and the original champion of the Australian series return to the House to help motivate the current crop of contenders.

Then new teams are formed… Pairing a current Loser contender with a “Legend” from the past.
Hopefully the Legends will get their own colour shirts as it may be hard to tell the difference otherwise.

Would you like to know more?
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Michelle has popped up in an article from yesterday’s Mercury, addressing the high rate of obesity amongst Tasmania’s children.

In the article, Michelle suggests one solution to this problem may be to institute “bootcamp” style workouts at the start of each school day.

“I’d love to see children do 30 minutes of exercise before class starts each day — that would be awesome,” Bridges said.

“Schools need to see the importance of exercise and encourage children to grow into healthy, active adults.”

Leaving aside the reluctance with which teachers would greet this proposition – would you want to teach a class of thirty sweaty, hyper kids each morning? – she is right that people need to stop turning a blind eye to the problem.

“We shouldn’t be kidding ourselves, we have to stop making excuses.”

She said fat adults were passing bad habits on to children, breeding whole families that were obese.

“Parents need to take control,” Bridges said.

“They’re the grown-ups, they’re the ones who should be setting the pace. They’ve got to set guidelines and be good role models.”

An idea which was reiterated in another article in today’s Mercury, where the Tasmanian Minister for Education, David Bartlett, says that the bootcamp idea is “too extreme”, but also…

He said parents needed to stop blaming schools for unfit children, and do more at home to encourage exercise and good eating habits.

“It’s a crowded curriculum and people in Tasmania, I believe, as my number one priority, want me to lift literacy and numeracy rates and that’s what we’re working hard on,” Mr Bartlett said.

He said more emphasis needed to be put on what happened at home.

Both sides make some good points. Mr Bartlett is correct in that parents need to take some responsibility for turning their children into pudgy nudfuhs. But at the same time that doesn’t excuse schools from attempting to educate children about health and fitness.

Is a “bootcamp” idea going too far? Probably, yes, but if you read what Michelle was actually suggesting, instead of simply freaking out at the “bootcamp” word, you’ll see that what she’s suggesting is really not so far away from what kids of my generation did on a regular basis. Various kinds of energetic exercise, done as a group activity, is a great way to get kids to be more active. Couple it with some instruction on healthy eating habits and maybe some practical lessons on preparing healthy, tasty, meals, and maybe the obesity epidemic would at least be slowed.

And if that doesn’t work, maybe the Government could mandate a real bootcamp for the parents of overweight children!

[Sources: School’s bootcamp and Bootcamp idea ‘too extreme’ both from the Mercury]