Weight Watchers RPG

Clive Thompson has concluded that the Weight Watchers online tool turns weight loss into a form of RPG.

An interesting concept, and here’s why he thinks that:

Think about it. As with an RPG, you roll a virtual character, manage your inventory and resources, and try to achieve a goal. Weight Watchers’ points function precisely like hit points; each bite of food does damage until you’ve used up your daily amount, so you sleep and start all over again. Play well and you level up — by losing weight! And the more you play it, the more you discover interesting combinations of the rules that aren’t apparent at first. Hey, if I eat a fruit-granola breakfast and an egg-and-romaine lunch, I’ll have enough points to survive a greasy hamburger dinner for a treat!

Even the Weight Watchers web tool is amazingly gamelike. It has the poke-around-and-see-what-happens elegance you see in really good RPG game screens. Accidentally snack on a candy bar and ruin your meal plan for the day? No worries: Just go into the database and see what spells — whoops, I mean foods — you can still use with your remaining points.

And those 35 extra points you get every week? They’re like a special buff or potion — a last-ditch save when you’re on the ropes.

And people have long thought that weight loss couldn’t be entertaining. Well, perhaps it’s time to re-think that.

Via | BoingBoing

Image courtesy of SXC