Medical research appears to have confirmed that Wii Fit and other “sports” games offering apparent physical exertion actually have no positive effect on fitness at all.
The study, conducted by an associate professor of health and exercise science at the University of Mississippi, took the form of a comparative case study of eight American families, whose physical fitness was recorded for 6 months each, with each family given 3 months of Wii Fit usage and 3 months of non-usage.
The research concluded that the game “produced no significant changes in daily physical activity, muscular fitness, flexibility, balance or body composition,” although it did find a “significant increase in aerobic fitness” in the children studied.
Since usage of the routine dropped off rapidly, from 22 minutes daily initially to 4 minutes after 6 weeks, the research generously concludes that “modest amounts of daily Wii Fit use may have provided insufficient stimulus for fitness changes.”
A less circumspect appraisal might be that the families had no real interest in getting fit in the first place, else they would already be exercising properly, although since this likely describes most Wii Fit users the research conclusions are probably valid all the same.
Considering its success in getting “brain training” games endorsed by medical specialists, Nintendo might want to commission some favourable research in this area too…
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What a surprise >_>
Really now. XD But still, those who really bought it to "get fit", should probably be happy that they're getting more excersice than they were before they bought it. It can't really have a negative effect.
there is a negative effect...on the wallet
That was pure crap from Nintendo (HA! What a surprise!) to sell that shitty console to every retard around.
Marketing nowdays is pure evil.
go outside... play real sport... weakling who wanna get fit should start with running, playing badminton, swimming, body building or dance lol
I dont think you'd get much of an effect from 4 minutes a day outside either. If you actually read the text it said the time spent on Wii fit dropped to about 4 minutes a day.
It's like saying working out doesn't do anything. The ones that tried did work out 5 minutes a day.
A confortable exercise bike cost at least $200 less than a Wii+Wii fit system. K actually wrote god tips on getting in shape.
I never said you shouldn't start doing something elese. But obviously you're not going to get some huge results with 4 minutes a day of training.
Unless you're working out max at one certain thing. Actually running for 4 minutes everyday would give results. But you might not even be capable of that if you're not in good shape.
Its all part of the marketing idea. This goes for Macdonalds. Where they often claim that their food is healthy etc. When the common men knows that consuming loads of fast food is unhealthy.
Oh, plz. Look @ where the study was done: Ole Miss; in the heart of the Deep South. 'Nuff said for Wii Fit study fail.
Yea i go a friend that uses a Wii Fit he is really fit though and just is really lazy. The games aren't fn either.
Indeed. There's only one general way to get fit, and it's called a change in lifestyle.
The article said it does work in children.
Also
Since usage of the routine dropped off rapidly, from 22 minutes daily initially to 4 minutes after 6 weeks, the research generously concludes that “modest amounts of daily Wii Fit use may have provided insufficient stimulus for fitness changes.
Translation, since people quit using it we can come to no conclusion.
It's like saying riding a bike does not increase your fitness because people stop doing it.
Like any form of exercise it works only if you keep at it.
I used the wii fit regularly for about 3 months and along with stretching (cause none of the fitness games tell you to stretch before working out) and cutting back on some junk food I felt like I had some steady improvement.
But then I was taking it seriously and only wanted to lose maybe 10 lbs and feel more active. I really did have more energy. And being able to continually get feedback from the wii helped keep me going. I stopped cause I moved and left the wii behind, at home.
Though I'll agree, if you want to make a big change you have to adjust your lifestyle and do some serious working out.
To add to this, whenever you start Wii fit, you get to do a basic check before you start doing shit. Simply put, it tells you your current weight and you perform two or three balance exercises.
In other words, if you only play for 4 minutes a day, you quit before actually starting. They only did the damned check-ups, not the actual fitness exercises. It's like only watching a movie's prologue and saying it sucks because the story never gets good.
Well, this is an American medical study on family health with the Wii Fit.
Maybe dropping the Quarterpounder with Cheese Diet and keeping to a steady exercise regimen might work better?
I CBA to read the report, but seriously - of course Wii Fit makes you fit, if you're enthusiastic about it. It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to figure out that prolonged physical activities, compared to none at all, give positive effects. Maybe not huge ones, but still.
Hey, I've got a staircase in my house. OF COURSE it can make me fit, if I'm ENTHUSIASTIC about it. Best of all using it doesn't set me back a few hundred bucks. Do retarded Wii fanboys like you even think about what they say before they launch into defense of Nintendo's bullshit?
Hah, wow, nice miss by a couple of hundred miles ^^
I'm most certainly not a Nintendo fanboy. I own a Wii, as a game dev I like to keep myself updated as much as I can, but have hardly even touched it since I bought it, and I would never purchase a Wii fit board as I find all the accessories just a waste of money (Wii is, btw, the most expensive console on the market if you consider buying a full set of controllers to any of the consoles).
That being said - yes, of course your staircase can make you fit. That's just a variant of my point - but I'd guess that using a Wii would be a bit more interesting than climbing the stairs over and over.
Personally, I hope for the day when I hear YourselfFitness coming to Xbox Arcade or similar.
are you joking? you just confirmed the other Anon point...
any kind of physical activity can make you fit if you are enthusiastic about it, that doesn't make every particular accessory (aka Wii) a fitness one...
to actually make you fit you needed a completely different set of tools and accessories that are actually designed to your body...
i have to get up and walk to the bathroom, is that a recommended fitness exercise?
If you walk back and forth from your bathroom at a good pace for at least an hour a day without break, then yes, that is very much recommended.
What?? Another lie told by major corporations, governments and those in influential positions? LIES.
Well... Some of these 'medical researches' have shown that iirc overweight people who exercises regularly with relatively high intensity for a few months were no better off than the control group.
So it's pretty obvious that if you're not careful with how you measure things, you're going to end up with results that don't reflect reality.
BS! A friend of mine lost 15 pounds in one month thanks to Wii fit's aerobic routine. She mainly needed the encouragement from it to always come back and track progress and keep up. The problem with exercise is it's boring and no fun but if you have a coach as this is, you are more apt to stick to it which is what causes real weight loss.
See, this is what the study doesn't put a lot of emphasis on -- their study group worked out for a whopping four minutes.
I'm no Nintendo fanboy -- I didn't even OWN a Wii till the beginning of December -- but I thought Wii Fit seemed like a good idea since it tries to motivate you to work out and reminds you of your progress, or lack thereof.
+1, Tingle
if the exercise is intense and increases ur heart rate i dont see why not.. combined with a healthy diet blah blah blah~
not surprised...
Okay.
Wait, is this supposed to surprise me or something? I'm more surprised by the fact that there were actually people gullible enough to be victims of marketing propaganda.
Because they were offered some cheeseburgers for it.
Jack Thompson is behind this..... (?)
Hmmm....lets see...American families in Mississippi...I think I see the problem there.
If Wii Fit fail then why not make Wii DDR...
They got that already.
Eight sugjects does not a case study make!
That's ridiculous.
If you play it as a game, then it's nothing more than a game. If you use it as a form of excercise, and get your heartrate up, the it can be, but you have to actally work at it.
Likewise, you can play DDR as excercise, if you wear arm weights, and intentionally move your entire body.
Looks like you fail at reading. Since when does one person constitute a family?
"control groups", champ.
"Likewise, you can play DDR as excercise, if you wear arm weights, and intentionally move your entire body."
Or you could just play it normally.
WiiFit in the end is a game, and from what I've been able to surmise it requires no activity that could be rigorous for weight loss or even maintaining weight.
That being said, I do imagine that 20-30 minutes of day of regular use could help improve joint and bone strength, because you are getting up and dancing around.
But even then it's merely taking the place of a daily walk.
You could probably play WiiFit by slightly rocking your beer-belly back and forth providing the right input with minimal exertion. Yet that doesn't mean it's how you should do it if your aim is WiiFitness.
So spot jogging, which in terms of weight loss is better than moving jogging is not rigorous enough to help weight loss... I think people who jog would tell you otherwise. Admitedly the 'distances' are fairly short (the longest route I know being only around 7 minutes at a good pace), but WiiFit is designed for people who have busy lives and need basic exercise rather than rigorous weight loss schedules.
well,
at least it is better than just sitting and pressing
Actually I believe they are saying it is in fact no better then sitting around pressing buttons.
No, they're saying that it's no better than sitting around not pressing buttons because you don't like the game.
lies! I got the butt-board so I could tone my ass!
Unless you have fun tilting your body back and forth on a white board over and over... I don't see how this is comparable.
People sitting around and pressing buttons don't expect to get fit, they expect to be entertained.
Standing on a white board is neither fun nor does it actually help you lose weight so it's a lose-lose situation.
Most of the standing is balance work not loosing weight, but I would say with proper use WiiFit does work, unfortunately proper use for loosing weight needs to be about an hour a day, not 4 minutes. Sure it's boring, but so is going to the gym.
Owning WiiFit doesn't make you fit?!?!?! OMG, I am shocked! So you actually have to play it just like normal exercise!!! I'm astonished!
But seriously this report is ridiculous, WiiFit is a tool, if someone doesn't use the tool properly does not mean that the tool is bad. God-Damnit modern society, take responsibility for your own actions, or lack there of!
I call for Wii Ballet, that will make people fit.
They went from 22 mins to 4 mins... Correct me if I'm wrong isn't it encouraged to do at least 30 mins a day for regular exercise? And regular exercise doesn't include losing weight, rather maintaining current weight instead of gaining more.
It's true what they say, you only get out what you put in, it's irritating when these people believe there is some sort of quick fix.
This isn't a study at all.
That did seem like a rather huge hole in their assumption. The title of the study needs to be changed to, "Having Wii Fit in your general vicinity will not make you lose weight"
4 minutes is barely enough time to turn the system on and do a body-fat check. You'd think this "research" would be more willing to admit that they completely failed at their intended goal because their test subjects stopped doing what needs to be tested.
Could you imagine what drug trials would be like if they drew conclusions from subjects who only took a drug once a week when they were needed to take it every day?
It does stat that the family has been using it for 20 minutes each day then dropped to 4 minutes each day.
HOW THE FUCK DO YOU EXPECT TO LOSE WEIGHT ON 4 MINUTES A DAY?!?!
Probably cause Wii Fit wasn't entertaining enough to keep them motivated about exercising.
The whole point of Wii Fit was to supposedly make exercising "fun" which it apparently failed to do with its repetitive mini-games. Might as well just go outside and run for half an hour.
The point of WiiFit was to facilitate exercise in Japan were there aren't many places to exercise, not to make it fun. Also to give you basic advice about exercising and weight-loss, along with balance and BMI checks quickly and easily so you can record your progress much more easily than at a gym. It was not designed to make it fun, simply to facilitate exercise to people who did not have the facilities nearby, or who could not afford regular gym payments.
No, the point of Wii Fit was to sell games and consoles to a market segment who would not normally buy games or game consoles.
It succeeded. But it demonstrably does not motivate people to take up a serious exercise regime, which is the point the research is really making.
I have to disagree with you there Atrefact.
It does have some motivational properties. The whole game aspect of it make it more fun to exercise in some people's minds.
I have family who needed to lose some weight and such, but couldnt stick with their routines. But the whole getting a high score thing seemed to keep them at it.
So it would be more correct to say it did not motivate the people in the study, who are far from representing the rest of the population.
You cannot deny the fact that people have reaped considerable benefits from Wii Fit, even if those 6 lazy families did not.
I wouldn't deny this, but I would still maintain that ultimately it only possesses the appearance of being a fitness program...
But again it is not a fitness program, but a tool to help people with a fitness program. It does not even sell itself as a fitness program, but sells itself as a tool. A fitness program is no different from a life plan (daily, weekly etc. you should of course cater it to your lifestyle) plan, and nowhere in the WiiFit advertisements does it say that it will plan your week for you. WiiFit has never pretended to be a miracle cure for people who don't exercise, simply a tool like any other. People do not judge a hammer if the families using it are unable to build a house.