For now, it may be a moot point; it’s unlikely the majority of U.S. parents — even those who managed to snag the Wii itself — will be able to locate a copy of the popular virtual exercise machine in the middle of a massive, possibly deliberate shortage. But when supply does finally catch up to demand, those parents will have to ask themselves if they really want to expose their children to the Fit’s hidden psychological danger.
That’s how I imagine this article might begin, if I were writing for parents who use their video game console as a surrogate babysitter — because in that context, the Wii Fit might be quite damaging indeed. Just ask the father of one 10-year-old girl who was broken-hearted by one of Wii Fit’s harsh judgments. But having spoken to Tam Fry (the very same gentleman who reputedly condemned the game in the Daily Mail), traded correspondence with a helpful Nintendo representative, and consulted the game’s instruction manual, I’m of the opinion that the only thing damaging about the Wii Fit is its tendency to make people believe the device is not only surrogate babysitter, but substitute doctor as well.
Tam Fry, honorary chairman of the Child Growth Foundation, actually has nothing against the game or its concept of getting families, even children, to exercise. “In principle, I like the Wii Fit. It gets children into activities,” he said. Rather, it’s the Fit’s message that he finds inappropriate — and the controversial use of BMI as an indicator of children’s health. Though Fry agreed that at some point, “you have to call a spade a spade,” and that “overweight” was the most sensible word to use when doing so, he argues that especially for children there’s far more to being overweight than a simple BMI calculation can reveal.
You may have heard that BMI is a measure of height and weight that’s blind to one’s muscle mass. You might even have heard that BMI is calculated differently for children than adults. But what you probably don’t know, and I didn’t know before speaking with Fry, is that while BMI can be an important indicator — Fry called it the “best method available” for determining healthy body weight — it has to be used on an individual basis, taking ancestry and body type into account. “BMI is not an exact science,” Fry told me, and explained that for children, growth patterns are also important. When I asked about the 10-year old girl who Wii Fit labeled ‘overweight,’ Fry related that at that age, “biology dictates that she will be fat.”
The obesity expert also added that BMI definitions vary from country to country.
Fry was understandably concerned that the Wii Fit’s developers may not have taken all these things into consideration before rolling out a $40 million marketing campaign prominently featuring children, and sharing his concern, GameCyte contacted Nintendo to see if we could obtain clarification about exactly how the Wii Fit calculates BMI for children, and if the company warns or plans to warn parents in any way about the device’s potential inaccuracy.
I received the following statement:
Nintendo used Body Mass Index (BMI) and its associated terminology as the in-game measurement in Wii Fit as it is a widely used formula that analyzes a person’s weight scaled to their height. BMI is used in Wii Fit as a way to measure a player’s progress as they undergo a fitness program. The different fitness categories used in Wii Fit (Underweight, Normal, Overweight and Obese) are those used by such groups as the National Institutes of Health and the World Health Organization.
BMI is a generally accepted health standard but should NOT be used as the sole and ultimate criterion to judge people’s health conditions. Parents who are concerned that their children would react negatively to one of the four BMI categories should use Wii Fit in such a way that the BMI tracker does not appear on the screen.
While the majority of the statement makes the product out to be practically doctor-approved, the last line reminded me that there is a parental responsibility here. Whatever Nintendo might have overlooked in the creation of this game, the onus should be on the parent to protect their child from harm, and — every now and again — to read an instruction manual.
On page 17, under “Body Test,” concerned parents can find the following warning:
Whether parents decide to take Nintendo’s advice, monitoring their children to make sure they never see the BMI tracker on the Body Check screen; ban their children from Wii Fit entirely; or save themselves a load of trouble and just explain why BMI doesn’t matter, there are simple solutions when parents take responsibility for their children.
None of this is to say that Nintendo didn’t make a mistake in choosing BMI as a measurement of fitness, that they couldn’t have made BMI tracking optional, or that they shouldn’t, as Tam Fry suggests, display parental warnings more prominently than those buried in the game manual. But that doesn’t excuse parents who forget that a one-size-fits-all product is not a doctor; and that no matter how technologically advanced the scale, it’s never a good idea to trust it with your self-esteem.
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