Busy Gamer News

Wii Fit adjusts your Mii according to one data point: the highly questionable BMI. As you can see, it isn't even close or flattering. Which is why my wife won't be playing it any more.

I picked up Wii Fit at launch this week, and while I think it's an admirable effort to make fitness fun, there are several reasons why it is doomed to fail - at least in the U.S. And why its fatal flaws could be incredibly dangerous to some highly impressionable people.

It's been well documented how our media-driven society already puts too much emphasis on unrealistic body image. Just watch a couple episodes of Carson Kressley's "How to Look Good Naked" to see how women routinely over prioritize and at the same time greatly misclassify their physical appearance. When Wii Fit "measures" you up, it takes your weight and calculates your Body Mass Index (BMI). That alone may drive the scale dodgers away - my wife's first reaction when I mentioned wanting to get Wii Fit was, "You want to have a scale in the living room?!"

And she has a point. Most decent doctors will tell you that BMI and even weight alone are not always accurate indicators of health. There are many other factors including muscle and body proportions to consider. While I am a little heavy, I've kept the same weight consistently for the past several years, and my doctor considers that healthier than rapidly ping-ponging up and down the weight scale. Should I lose a few pounds? Sure. But am I borderline obese?

According to Wii Fit, yes.

But I'm a guy, and not all that obsessed with body image. In fact, I immediately decided to ignore the BMI recommendation in favor of a reasonable goal of losing about 12 pounds over the next six weeks. My wife, on the other hand, may never touch the game again. Anyone who sees her knows that she's got a proportionate figure and that she could never safely lose enough weight to match the officially sanctioned target weight for her height - at least not without surgically removing several of her womanly attributes. She is buxom and muscular and has no desire to be a twiglike Kate Moss, but still struggles occasionally with body image.

So when the Wii called her obese and then had the gall inflate her Mii to look like a overly plump blueberry, she was deeply offended and nearly went running from the room. She looks nothing like that, and no casual observer would ever consider her obese (her coworkers were appalled!) - but now everytime she boots Wii Fit that is what she's faced with. Fortunately, the Mii distortion is limited to the main menu, so you don't appear that way in activities. But it's still off-putting enough that she's not making any real plans to play it again.

It's possible that this game did so well in Japan because people there aren't as hung up on body image. I imagine it's a great party game there and, the more out of whack it makes your Mii look, the funnier and more entertaining it is. Not so in the U.S. and, I'd wager, Europe. It's been established in several news reports that young, lithe teen girls are being labeled fat and this is just the kind of thing to make them believe it. Seeing it reflected up on the screen, no matter how ridiculous it might appear to be, will just reinforce it in their minds and lead to more destructive (and occasionally fatal) behavior such as anorexia and bulimia.

"Well, the game thinks I'm fat," they'll say. "So it must be true." It's a form of independent verification, and most people are not going to realize that it's just software and only as good as the designers and developers who programmed it. Having worked in software for many years, I know how many ill-conceived features and bugs ship in final code, so I trust this game as much as I believe my operating system when it says the printer isn't turned on. But, alas, if you already don't trust what you see in the mirror, having the Wii state what you secretly fear may clinch it for you.

My wife had lunch with her Pilates instructor (who also has worked with us in the software industry!), and her workout coach had a helpful suggestion: Simply inflate your height about 6-8 inches. This will adjust your BMI and target weight and slim down your Mii. This actually made her Mii much closer to her actual body shape, albeit without the ample chest. True, the game will no longer provide an accurate picture of BMI but, since it would be unhealthful to lose enough weight to get to its target goal, this really isn't a big deal. Setting small but achievable weight loss goals, and revising them occasionally once a goal has been met, is a much healthier strategy anyway.

In fact, a real doctor has come forward and stated that Wii Fit is very unrealistic. According to Dr. Judith Stern, professor of Nutrition and Internal Medicine at the University of California:

"It's not just BMI you want to look at, but how fat you are. When you are physically fit, you tend to replace fat with muscle, and your BMI probably won't change... I really think it's false and misleading.

So this is what I have to say to Nintendo's programmers, who really should have better tested their game internationally instead of assuming that, like with its Mario and Zelda titles, what does well in Japan will play fine worldwide:

• BMI is only one factor, and not the most accurate or telling one in all cases.
• The game should look at body measurements before inflating your Mii to dumpy proportions.
• And let gamers turn off the body image visulaization if it doesn't motivate them,

As I mentioned earlier, since I'm a guy I was less put off by the body image thing and will probably just try to ignore BMI except as a very loose indicator of progress. I do need to shed a few pounds, though my doctor indicates I am quite healthy and simply could use a little more aerobic activity in my lifestyle. This may help.

For that, I like Wii Fit. But I think there are many things that could and should be changed about it to make it more useful, less offputting and, in some cases, even dangerous to some. After all, it's only a game.

-=Gamewatcher