Are Wii Fit… or Fat?
May 21, 2008 by angelique
Filed under Women's Health
Can a video game lead honestly trigger eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia?
Some people seem to think so, which flies in the face of typical criticisms of games generally aimed at keeping kids indoors for hours at a time.
Nintendo’s Wii Fit is the target of some unexpected controversy.
According to this news article from the UK:
“…the parents of 11-year-old Lincolnshire girl Tabea Scott-King were shocked to learn that their fit and active daughter planned on dropping weight after Wii Fit calculated her body mass index (BMI) and advised her that she was getting a little fat around the middle.”
Concerned, Scott-King’s mother has made a stink.
As a parent myself, I don’t blame her.
This is another example of BMI being used in what I think is an unrestricted and far too casual manner.
As an 11-year-old girl, Scott-King’s BMI may have been 19.5 (which is, as the article points out, on the low side of normal for the BMI’s categories.) But that doesn’t make her fat.
And let’s face facts – even if she were heavy, no video game should be encouraging her to exercise more and whittle down her tummy.
I will NOT buy the Wii for my kids. They are *begging* me and I feel incredibly guilty, but it’s pretend exercise. For lack of a better way of saying this, I think it sucks.
Chris:
Welcome, you blogging maven you!
I totally agree. No way in hell am I going to line Nintendo’s coffers by paying for this crap.
I’d much rather have my son play outside for exercise, even if it means he’s going to end up tracking mud through the house, bringing in god knows what kind of critters and turning the bath water black at night!
I know people have a lot of problems with Wii Fit because it tracks your BMI when you use the body test and BMI doesn’t work right with kids.
I don’t see why this makes you hate the Wii so much though. No one said it is something to replace exercise or going outside, it’s a video game system. The Wii has normal games just like any other system and even Wii Sports can be played just by using your wrist. The point of it isn’t exercise, but being a fun system that the whole family, even those that don’t play video games, can play and have fun with.
Just because of one game people say an entire system sucks, but it isn’t any worse than any other game system and atleast it’s games are more family friendly than some others.
Kyo:
Honestly, I’m so anti-video game that I’m sure that bias spills over into this issue. Couple that with my eating disordered past, and I guess the Wii just never had a chance!
Good points you make, though. Thanks for chiming in on the discussion!