Wii Fit And Body Mass Index (BMI)

July 30, 2008 16:17 by author

BMI On my daily scour of the web for all things Balance Board I came across a blog post titled "Wii Fit Can Cause Eating Disorders". In itself this is nothing new - we've been bombarded by the press with similar stories since Wii Fit's launch. But a few things in this post by Aussie Pete did grab my attention.

Firstly, he quotes a response from Nintendo regarding the accuracy of BMI in relation to younger age groups. Now I've seen a few of these reponses before, but this is the first time I've seen a response from Nintendo that shifts the responsibility to parents.

"Parents who are concerned that their children will react negatively to one of the four BMI categories should use Wii Fit in such a way that the BMI tracker does not appear on screen."

While I do understand the intent I'm not sure how workable it is in practice. As a parent you may have control in your own home, but how do you stop your child from being introduced to Wii Fit outside the home as in the now well publicised case reported in the UK's Daily Mail. Fortunately it seems that common sense has prevailed and overall the response to Wii Fit continues to be positive.

The other thing that grabbed my attention was the image above which so succinctly sums up one of the problems with BMI. Incidentally, this image comes from an article on BMI at HowStuffWorks. If you're interested to read more on BMI, how it's calculated and the various pros and cons of BMI, this article is a good read.

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Tags: wii fit
Categories: Wii Board General
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Comments

August 1. 2008 22:42

The thing that image ignores, however, is that anyone who is actually in a condition where their BMI would be high enough that they would be labeled as overweight or obese despite their incredible health would almost CERTAINLY know that BMI is not an appropriate measurement for them. Not to mention the image on the left being arguably unhealthy.

Feba

August 5. 2008 08:43

What is wrong with people these days. The wii fit is nothing more than a fun game not to be taken seriously. Most parents buy their kids games consoles instead of making them play outside with real people learning real life skills and keeping fit and healthy burning off whatever food they have eaten. Nintendo know that most kids now sit indoors to play burning off zero energy so they are trying to promote and encourage the child to at least do some form of physical activity.

Neil Fotheringham