Gaming Wii Fit calls 10 year old girl "fat."

[GizmoDuck]

Wii Fit or Wii Fat?
Nintendo's exergame wrongly labels kids overweight, claim obesity experts.

When a 10 year-old girl from the South-East of Britain stepped on the scale of Nintendo's new game Wii Fit, she expected to get the blood pumping with some fun, casual exercising.

Instead, the game's software told her she was fat. Understandably, her father wasn't happy.
"She is a perfectly healthy, 4ft 9in tall 10-year-old who swims, dances and weighs only six stone (84 lbs). She is solidly built but not fat. She was devastated to be called fat and we had to work hard to convince her she isn't."

Obesity experts in the U.K. are working equally hard taking Nintendo to task for failing to warn parents that Wii Fit isn't appropriate for younger kids. At the center of the debate is the game's use of the Body Mass Index (BMI) as a means of judging the health of its players. After standing on the game's innovative Balance Board peripheral and entering basic information like height and weight, the game doles out an overall BMI number as well as a label, such as "underweight," "ideal," or in some cases, "fat." While the somewhat callous system is reasonably accurate in determining the BMI of adults, a child's BMI can literally change from day to day. Experts have deemed its use in Wii Fit misleading.

"I'm absolutely aghast that children are being told they are fat," said Tam Fry of the National Obesity Forum. "BMI is far from perfect but with children it simply should not be used. A child's BMI can change every month and it is perfectly possible for a child to be stocky, yet still very fit."
Nintendo apologized for the terminology used to describe players, but stopped short of actually adding a warning to the game.

"Wii Fit is still capable of measuring the BMI for people aged between two and 20 but the resulting figures may not be entirely accurate for younger age groups due to varying levels of development," the company said through a spokesman.

Nintendo's exergame is already a bona fide international hit, selling out quickly in both Japan and Europe. The game releases in North America on May 19.

(Source: Ben Silverman, Yahoo! Games)
Link: http://us.i1.yimg.com/videogames.yahoo.com...ii-fat-/1213585

 

[Phytagoras]

She is solidly built but not fat.

Lol xD

 

[Narin]

What about those "big boned" people being called fat too?

 

[Urza]

How can we judge without a pic?

 

[MAD_BOY]

Since when does it literally say you're fat? AFAIK it only says you're 'overweight' or 'obese'.

 

[arctic_flame]

Is 6 stone fat for a 10 year old?

 

[James B.]

Why is nintendo most likely having to apologize for the truth?

When you stand on a scale -- unless its rigged -- Its gonna tell you the truth.

Zeesh.

 

[Venko]

She is solidly built but not fat.

Lol xD

Sounds to me like the game was being truthful. Lol.

Anyhow, aren't Japanese girls generally slim? Clearly Nintendo wants all girls to be like so.

 

[gizmo_gal]

I dont know why this is such a big deal.

anyone with common sense would've explained to the child that the game was only a machine which can be wrong/malfunction. I know that BMI is really only measured in adults, not kids. But for her size and weight she is actually "underweight" according to her BMI--if my calculations are correct that is.

Either way, teach your kids that they decided their own worth and value with their actions and behaviour and instill some common sense and a spine in them so that they can stand up for themselves and be proud of themselves. If people'd do that then we many wouldn't have these problems. The problem is everyone seems to expect the media/world in general to do the child rearing for them.

Parents need to take responsibility for their kids, really. and quit making such a gigantic deal out of every little thing. *sheesh*

When people say it takes a village to raise a child, they mean the kith and kin of that childs family also take a part in raising children and helps to allow the child to grow to be well rounded and able to function well in a society and it allows the child to have mulitple relationships and tiers of support.

Not set the kids in front of the TV and let them learn not to be obese, not to be afraid to eat, not to dress,act and dance like tramps/thugs etc...

when I see stuff like this, it really makes me angry with the parents.

 

[Temptastic]

Were the percentages changed from the Japanese version?

 

[DeMoN]

They should've just included a disclaimer like in Brain Age saying that people under 20 years old would have an inaccurate reading.

 

[Narin]

I dont know why this is such a big deal.

anyone with common sense would've explained to the child that the game was only a machine which can be wrong/malfunction. I know that BMI is really only measured in adults, not kids. But for her size and weight she is actually "underweight" according to her BMI--if my calculations are correct that is.

Either way, teach your kids that they decided their own worth and value with their actions and behaviour and instill some common sense and a spine in them so that they can stand up for themselves and be proud of themselves. If people'd do that then we many wouldn't have these problems. The problem is everyone seems to expect the media/world in general to do the child rearing for them.

Parents need to take responsibility for their kids, really. and quit making such a gigantic deal out of every little thing. *sheesh*

When people say it takes a village to raise a child, they mean the kith and kin of that childs family also take a part in raising children and helps to allow the child to grow to be well rounded and able to function well in a society and it allows the child to have mulitple relationships and tiers of support.

Not set the kids in front of the TV and let them learn not to be obese, not to be afraid to eat, not to dress,act and dance like tramps/thugs etc...

when I see stuff like this, it really makes me angry with the parents.

It simply comes down to is that parents now a days don't want to take responsibility. If something goes wrong, its clearly not their fault, it must be so and so fault. When they allow kids to sit down all day watching TV and they start cursing, picking up bad habits, ect, its not their fault, its the TV shows fault, so lets boycott them. I'm getting tired of parents blaming other people for things in which it clearly could have been prevented with some parental monitoring on their part and actually acting like a responsible parent. It reminds me of the parents who tried to sue McDonalds for making their kid fat when they took the kid to eat there almost every day. Come on, enough is enough, this is just getting ridiculous now.

When something goes wrong, they blame everyone else and then get sue happy. Like this one parent trying to sue Nintendo bbecause their kid was playing a Nintendo DS game and it called them a "fat whore", which is impossible unless someone had access to the game and modified it or entered that phrase manually into the game since no Nintendo game contains such language. So instead, the parent is blaming nintendo for allowing such stuff to be entered into a game. Right...because its all Nintendo's fault.

Parents just need to act more like parents and take more responsibility for their kids. If they can't act as responsible parents, they should have never had kids in the first place.

 

[The Teej]

How did this get around to be being the parent's fault? 10 year old girls are always image conscious these days, and if a game goes around telling underweight girls their fat then that's clearly a responsibility for Nintendo to make sure their shit works. You sound just as ridiculous as those parents who blame video games for everything.

 

[Giga_Gaia]

Like we even care, if they think they are fat because a game tells them, they are stupid. Beside, if she really is fat, then we do not even care if she is.

 

[lagman]

lmao, some people...cheeriously. This sounds more like a South Park episode about Cartman and his mother than a piece of news.

 

[CockroachMan]

Well.. she IS fat

 

[Eternal Myst]

I don't get it.
If she is solidly built doesn't that mean she is fat.There isn't a difference am I mistaken.
Anyways I don't understand why people make a big deal out of everything.

 

[Elisa_]

Lawl, pwnt She must of been crying, glad I don't have that game or i'd be called fat

g

 

[TaMs]

Kind of old news, but nintendo should have known better. "Hey, let's make game children that calls them fat"

 

[Giga_Gaia]

Well, she cried? She is so pathetic, she deserve to be fat.