Wii Fit: hey fatty-you're fat!
Submitted by Robbie on August 17, 2008 - 9:42pm.
According to my new Wii Fit, I'm a total porker! OK, maybe not that bad, but I'm definitely "Overweight." So 20 minutes later, a sweaty mess, I think -- this is what video games were made for. Self-improvement. If only it was a first person shooter, too!
Apparently, some folks are upset that the Wii is calling your kids fatty-cakes...
"...Leading obesity experts in the UK are upset that Wii Fit uses BMI to pigeonhole children as being underweight, ideal or overweight. They are calling for the sale of Wii Fit to be banned for children. Wii Fit heavily uses the BMI measurement system, which isn't terrible as a very vague rule of thumb but, as an actual scientific system of determining health or attractiveness, is utterly worthless. More over, one of the Daily Mail's examples is that a 10 year old girl who weighed 84 pounds at 4 foot 9 was classified as "overweight." If true, that's either a serious bug or a loathsomely narrow definition on Nintendo's part of what constitutes fitness. However, that seems to be the sole data point in the evidence of the critique... hardly the sort of thing people who aren't already desperate to be offended would get up in arms about. It could simply be a broken Wii Fit board."
Link: http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/05/16/experts-outraged-th...
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