The Wii Fit, which comes complete with its own special balance board, is one of the new fitness computer games from the Nintendo stable, which already includes virtual games such as tennis, boxing and bowling…
Sophie, a publicist, shows me the new hardware for Wii Fit at her office in Soho. On the floor in front of a giant TV is a pressure-sensitive balance board about the size of weighing scales. In fact, what the new Wii does is to weigh you straight away. Along with your height and age, the computer then works out your body mass index. Mine is 29.36, somewhere between Medically Obese and About To Drop Dead. “It’s not 100 per cent accurate,” Sophie says, tactfully. “Muscle weighs more than fat.” “Thanks,” I say. “I can see why you’re in PR.”
[Youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=t3pfQdADxEs[/youtube]
Next, after some rudimentary balance exercises in which I am revealed to be fundamentally lopsided, the machine computes my “Wii age”. It is 65 (my actual age is 43). “Oh dear,” says Sophie. I have to choose a “Mii”, an icon to represent myself on screen. I go for a perky little chap with a side part and pot belly. He introduces himself. In Japanese. The English language version is not available yet, but if its success over there is anything to go by – more than a million copies of the game sold in just over a month – this game won’t be sitting on shop shelves for long.
I select an on-screen tutor, wondering if it’s morally or legally OK to lust after a computer-generated fitness instructor. She greets me with what I take to be a provocative pose. “She’s saying, ‘Hello, you fat bastard’,” the photographer says. “Nah,” I say, “she’s saying she fancies me. You can always tell.” “It’s a good alternative for those people who aren’t, er, that confident about going to the gym,” Sophie offers.
For the next hour I submit myself to a series of sometimes gruelling, sometimes exciting, often humiliating exertions. I try some skiing, first slalom, then a jump. Neither is successful. I turn into a ball and try to roll myself down a hole. I endeavour to keep one hula hoop in motion while attempting to catch others. It’s all about minute transfers of weight, rhythm, fluidity of the pelvis, such as dancing, essentially.
I could feel my abdominal muscles taking the strain, so presumably it was doing some good. Improving core strength and stability is the order of the day. Nintendo is to ask Liverpool John Moores University to research the effects of Wii Fit, but anecdotally, I can confirm that you have to make an effort. Not as you would lifting weights or running, but similar to a beginners’ Pilates class, or some semi-serious stretching.
Officials at one eastern Kentucky hospital say their patients soon won’t have to travel to see a specialist.
