Jeremy Shere

If you follow sci/tech news you’ve probably hard about “Wii Fit,” a new version of the wildly popular Nintendo video game system. It seems like a brilliant concept–video games that will get people up and moving and sweating by making exercise fun and challenging.

Now, I haven’t tried “Wii Fit.” (In fact, I’ve never played a “Wii” game, period, although they look extremely cool and I’d like to give it a whirl). So what follows is based purely on what I’ve read and seen on the web…

So first, according to the Wii Fit website:

“The active-play phenomenon started by Wii Sports now spreads to your whole body thanks to the pressure-sensitive Wii Balance Board (name not final), which comes packed with Wii Fit. The board is used for an extensive array of fun and dynamic activities, including aerobics, yoga, muscle stretches and games. Many of these activities focus towards providing a “core” workout, a popular exercise method that emphasizes slower, controlled motions. Family members will have fun staying active and talking about and comparing their results and progress on a new channel on the Wii Menu.”

If the video of people using the Wii Fit balance board is an accurate representation of how it works (you can watch the video on the Wii Fit website), it looks like this may have some merit as a viable exercise game/system/whatever. The games shown in the video include yoga, dancing, something involving blocking soccer balls with your head, pushups, and hoola-hooping. The balance board is the key–it measures your weight, ability to balance, counts your pushups, and gives you some sense of how well you’re doing, fitness-wise.

So the big question is, of course, can these games and activities really get and keep you in shape? Or is Wii Fit really just a very cool toy that you’ll use for a few weeks or maybe months and then shove in the closet once the novelty wears off?

Here are my two cents …

Based on what I saw on the promotional video, doing these virtual exercises requires an openness to some seriously goofy-looking behavior. The dance and hoola-hoops games, especially, would take some getting used to. The yoga game looks kinda cool–you follow the lead of a virtual avatar yoga teacher. And the soccer blocking game looks fun. It involves a lot of bending from the waist and thrusting with the head. I’m not sure if this gives you much of an aerobic workout, but it does seem amusing.

I suppose that any movement is better than none. Jumping around on a Wii balance board is better than sitting on the couch watching TV or playing regular video games, I guess. But my hunch is that most nutrition/fitness experts will tell you that not video game comes close to real, old-fashioned exercise. A month or so ago I interviewed Colleen Green, a fitness researchers at the University of Michigan. (You can read/listen to the produced program here.) I asked her about the health benefits of so-called active video games like Wii tennis and Dance-Dance revolution. She told me that Wii tennis (where you swing the controller sort of like you would a raquette) comes nowhere near burning the same amount of calories as playing real tennis.

Now, Wii Fit is a different breed of video game system, it seems. If it gets you to do pushups and run in place and work up a sweat, then great. But somehow I suspect that most people who buy it will give it a try for a few weeks and then revert to their old, lazy non-aerobic routines. A lot of people evidently find gyms and fitness clubs to be intimidating and/or boring, but at least you’re among a bunch of other active people. And you can learn new techniques and exercise routines by watching people who seem to know what they’re doing. A gym is also social–if you go regularly you see the same people, exchange small talk with the regulars and get to feel like you’re part of a community of people who care about being in shape.

Wii Fit is the opposite. You’d end up using it in the privacy of your living room or bed room. And it’s just you, the balance board and digital avatars. To me, that sounds a little lonely and not very inspiring.