Even Your Car Can Tell If You're Getting Fat

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the can't-avoid-it dept

It’s the time of year when people make resolutions that they will never ever follow in the coming year, and I’d bet that a fairly significant percentage of those New Year’s resolutions involve losing weight. About a year and a half ago (not due to any sort of New Year’s Resolution) I lost the extra weight I’d gained over the past few years, partly with the help of a nifty software program that let me input what I was eating and weighing each day. Just having the simple feedback each day helped me to adjust my eating and exercise habits so that I could shed some pounds. Of course, that still required me to be diligent in checking my weight and entering the info into the program. Many people, knowing they’re not doing well will simply ignore the scale to avoid having to face the reality of what’s going on. So, a professor has invented a system that’s much tougher to avoid. He’s basically taken a similar program to what I used, and installed it, along with a scale, into a car, so that every time you sit in the driver’s seat, the car weighs you and determines how you’re doing on your diet. If you’re putting on a few extra pounds, the car will tell you. It can also give you info about the foods you’re eating and suggest diet and exercise plans. Since you have to drive places, it makes it nearly impossible to avoid facing the facts that your car tells you. Plus, it will even threaten to email your doctor if you’ve been putting on too much weight. Of course, this might make people avoid driving altogether, but maybe that takes a different path towards solving the problem: by forcing you to get off your lazy butt and walk or bike somewhere instead.