Nutrition prof: Wii Fit is 'misleading'

by Chris Greenhough { May 21st 2008 at 11:45AM }

Have you rushed out to pick up your copy of Wii Fit yet? You have? Excellent! Here's who hasn't: Dr. Judith Stern, professor of Nutrition and Internal Medicine at the University of California. Dr. Stern isn't the biggest Wii Fit fan, and has criticized the game for being "false and misleading."

"I don't see anything that shows me that BMI will change, and I really think it's false and misleading," opined the good doctor, who believes that using BMI as an index to fitness is a mistake. "When you are physically fit, you tend to replace fat with muscle, and your BMI probably won't change," she adds. That appears to be a pretty valid point (and heck, we're not about to start arguing with an expert on nutrition, especially considering we attribute most scientific occurrences to witchcraft) but has anybody at Nintendo explicitly promised Wii Fit will bring about improved fitness or a lower BMI? Well, we know Shigeru Miyamoto didn't.

Gallery: Wii Fit

[Via Go Nintendo]

Tags: exercise, exergaming, fitness, wii-fit

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

bc @ May 21st 2008 12:03PM

"...has anybody at Nintendo explicitly promised Wii Fit will bring about improved fitness or a lower BMI?"

Well, your Metareview screenshot (http://nintendo.joystiq.com/2008/05/21/metareview-wii-fit/) shows a graph that clearly does track BMI changes over time/use. I can't tell which exactly are the happy/sad faces on the Miis, but it does seem that there is a "good" and "bad" result promoted by the game.

Dark Archon @ May 21st 2008 12:16PM

Not true. I'm on my 27th day now and not even once was I told that I'm too fat or that I need to lose weight. What is says is: 'It seems that you gained 2lb since yesterday. Do you know what was the cause of that?' It never tells you what you should or should not do. Or is the weight gain/loss good or bad. Also, it never sets any goals for you. You can do it yourself, though.

Rocketboy @ May 21st 2008 12:13PM

Yes, we all know that BMI is not always the best way to measure these things. But I don't think that there's any body builders out there looking at their BMI and thinking that they need to go on a diet.

stitch @ May 21st 2008 8:23PM

because they already knew their BMI before they started exercising. That's one of the first things that are measured

Rocketboy @ May 22nd 2008 9:43AM

Well, that, and with regards to body mass, they are generally not stupid.

Ridgecity @ May 21st 2008 12:25PM

The doctor, should organize something to change BMI since that's the official measurement, if it's wrong it can have something new. but it won't. why? because it works, this isn't meant to be read without someone that actual knows how it works. I'm surprised all the athlete kids that are getting the overweight card, sure, they averweight, does that mean they are fat? not really, it says you are over the normal weight for your age, it might be from muscle or fat deposits, but you do are overweight. The problem is that the word overweight has been tied into fat.

What' smore surprising about these kids is that they don't know about BMI, what kind of coaches do they have, if you kid like exercising, explain to them all the terminology they will run into, don't let them understand stuff by themselves, that's very irresposible, than they are learning about this using a video game.

Hope Nintendo never releases a game about sex, or they will blaming Nintendo for the strained genitalia the next day...

JasenJ1 @ May 21st 2008 12:42PM

People who are fit, know they are fit and will ignore the BMI score or know that it is high because they are muscular. Fatties will whine that BMI is inaccurate for any reason they can find.

Put down that sandwich and do some exercise!

Go1denchi1d @ May 21st 2008 12:44PM

Well my BMI is near 28. I'm pretty well aware of the additional weight in muscle than in fat. I also realized I am definitely not a muscle head. So, I think its better to say that BMI works best with the average amount of people who are not pushing extremes. I also agree about the Wii Fit. It doesn't blame you for being fat. It says that the acceptable BMI meter is around 22. Losing weight is a good idea but its not like the Wii Fit came with a free weights set and expects you to lift like a monster. Anyways, I'm tired. Yoga is some tiring crap!

KlepDog @ May 21st 2008 1:07PM

Like most "health related" things, BMI is meant as a guideline for the masses and not gospel. I am 6'2", 230... my BMI has me at "obese". However, I can look at myself in the mirror and realize that BMI doesn't apply to me (I played football in college). I'm 40 now, and have a few extra pounds, but still exercise enough to keep the semi-athletic build. However, for the non-athletic, light (or no) exerciser, the BMI is an excellent guideline of where you need to be. It's all common sense, since YOU KNOW if you are overweight or not (look in the mirror and be honest with yourself). Diets and Magic Pills will get you nowhere. It all comes down to two things: eat right, exercise. Wii Fit gives you a fun way of exercising, thats all.

mule @ May 21st 2008 2:29PM

If you play it on the moon you BMI will be lowered! I've been BMI'd by Science!

James @ May 21st 2008 2:04PM

Look into the history of the BMI: it's a statistician's tool. Statistics live or die by the way you group your data, and because people have a natural variance in their build, taking any one measure of a person (such as weight alone) leads to really crappy statistics, since you're lumping together the dude that's 6'4" 200 lbs with the dude that's 5'8" 200lbs. BMI is *not* perfect, but it does the best it can with two of the easiest-to-obtain body measurements (height and weight).

Would it be better if we could derive another number that incorporates body-fat percentage, bone structure, parentage, and hair length? Sure, that might help. But the BMI takes the easiest-to-hand information we have and crunches it down in a somewhat-meaningful way.

Now, I can't say if Wii Fit conveys the above caveats or not...

Adam @ May 21st 2008 3:16PM

"When you are physically fit, you tend to replace fat with muscle, and your BMI probably won't change,"

If your physically fit and a little kid calls you overweight do you run and cry? do you tell the small child "YOUR WRONG! Im physically fit!" NOPE!

Cause for some reason people still do not understand the goal of wiifit (To keep you active while having fun) its ripe for blame when people do not get results they want. If you work out prior to WiiFit and are in good shape, WiiFit isnt going to be the replacement to going to a doctor. Again, as Miyamoto stated "I don't think Wii Fit's purpose is to make you fit; what it's actually aiming to do is make you aware of your body." He created it to see how his family and he charted up in fitness. To see how they measured up after a day, a week, a month, and a year so on and so on.

Sides, if you take into account what a video game says (ie, the little skinny girl who was upset cause WiiFit said she was overweight, man, hate to see what happens when a young boy in love might tell her shes fat to get her attention) you SHOULD see a real doctor. There might be something more wrong with ya.

Patrick @ May 21st 2008 2:56PM

I wouldn't trust anything Wii Fit said. Why? Try this: go to the Mii Channel, create a new Mii, and make him/her as short and fat as possible. The Mii you've created is not nearly as short or fat as it sh ould be. That is how unreliable I perceive Wii products in this category to be. Having said that, I'm buying two copies of Wii Fit to sell on craigslist.

Mike @ May 21st 2008 3:00PM

From my understanding BMI doesn't tell you if you have too much fat or too much muscle. It tells you if you are overweight for your height. I would argue that body builders are overweight for their height, I wouldn't say they are unhealthy, just 'overweight.'

However we need to be honest with ourselves, the majority of people that BMI classifies as being 'overweight' have the unhealthy type of extra weight.

BMI is a decent but flawed measurement.

Roman @ May 21st 2008 4:42PM

This depends on how overweight you are. What this nutritionist is saying is that your weight doesn't matter. Her argument could be just as well used against a normal scale.

Fact is, for most people, as you drop fat off your body your body weight (and therefore your BMI) go down. It's nearly impossible to replace fat with muscle pound for pound, and most women won't want to. You'd have to be doing some *serious* weight training to make this happen - and probably taking steroids.

An example. I used to weigh 190 pounds and most of it was fat. At age 30 the doc told me I had high cholesterol so I radically changed my diet and exercise. I started losing weight - at one point I was all the way down to 130.

Then I started body building - very regularly and intense. My muscles grew significantly and now I wiegh 145 lbs. That's 15 pounds I gained of mostly muscle - and that is doing heavy squats, bench presses, chinups - exercises designed to put muscle on your body. The strength exercises from we fit aren't going to make you bulky the way barbell squats do. So I lost 60 lbs and fat and gained 15 lbs of muscle.

Like all other convenient ways of measuring how fat your are, BMI is not perfect. But it's good enough for 90% of people.

What do they want us all to do - get water displacement tests?

Daniel @ May 21st 2008 7:40PM

>> What do they want us all to do - get water displacement tests?

That is a good point. What would be the alternative? Adding impedance strips to the Wii Board? Laser body-size measurements? Electronic calipers?

The impedance strips might have worked except that you would have to have your bare feet on the board for each measurement. Anything else would be nutty.

I think the main reason for the vocal opposition is because of the mischaracterization that BMI gives to people. Someone even made an applet to calculate BMI using an alternative method: http://www.mines.edu/~gmurray/BMIApplet/BMIApplet.html

larch @ May 21st 2008 3:40PM

Man the Harpoons :)

stitch @ May 21st 2008 8:23PM

Dude i'm not gonan read this whole thing. But i'm shocked that a doctor can't actually read!

Read the manuel! It says in there its not meant for kids or bodybuilders.... because like you said muscle weighs more than fat. So if you know you got a healthy BMI then don't bother weighing yourself because you know you've got muscle!

This is supposed to help you get Fit! Or get started on exercising. If you already are fit then why would you bother playing?

I'm sick of people trying to find reasons to badger Nintendo about this. "Oh my god it called me fat!" "I'm gonna tell everyone in the world this is wrong!"

News flash: BMI has been around for years and if it wasn't really useful then it wouldnt currently be used around gyms and health places anywhere. BMI is used to calculate your weight in accordance with your height. If it is "overweight" then it may lead to health problems in the future. Google it up. Because obviously this doctor can't tell you anything if he can't even read the manuel.

I am truely sick of people complaining about Wii Fit calling them fat. Honostly, complain about something else. These are the same people who were saying Cookie Monster of sesame street should eat carrots insted of cookies because it's gonna influence kids to eat unhealthy. Or saying that Santa is not allowed to say "Ho Ho Ho" anymore because it's refering to females being called a bad name. Seriously what is this world coming to?! With Wii Fit... if you get on a normal scale it's gonna tell you the same thing. So you kids who are being called fat, I guess you've never stepped on a scale before have you. Or is it actually that words make more sence than numbers (ie, you can understand what obese means, but you cant understand what 200 pounds or 100 kilograms means)

macserv @ May 21st 2008 8:49PM

Well, now, I guess SOMEone didn't like it when Wii Fit said they were overweight.

macserv @ May 21st 2008 8:51PM

It should also be noted that it the process for making it STOP saying that straightforward enough, and the same for pretty much everyone on the planet.

JasenJ1 @ May 22nd 2008 9:32AM

I understand now why kids - girls in particular - would be unhappy about Wii Fit telling them they're overweight. Your Mii is drawn according to your BMI. So if your BMI is high, your Mii is drawn fat. Trivial, but appearance is important - especially to girls. When my wife (who is overweight) made her profile, she immediately complained about her Mii being drawn fat.

This can be overcome by just lying about your height, but I can see where it would cause some emotional pain to precious white snow-flakes.

Matt @ May 21st 2008 10:08PM

The Dr. is right about BMI when it comes to fat vs muscle mass. But I'm pretty wure Wii Fit isn't made to increase muscle mass. There's no resistance training in Wii Fit, from what I've seen.

These exercises aren't meant to significantly increase muscle mass, but I would argue they are intended to slim down to some extent. For example, if you have a fat stomach, these exercises aren't likely to give you a 6-pack of abs any time soon, but they could slim it down a bit. And even that is over a long period of time...