Dr. Judith Stern discusses the merits of BMI and what Wii Fit can (or can't) do for you.

Stepping on the Wii Balance Board for the first time, you may be shocked by being told that you are, in fact, overweight. We examined the potential ramifications of Wii Fit's approach to weight management and assessment in our previous article, Wii Fit: Bruised Boards and Balanced Egos. On the eve of the U.S. launch of Wii Fit, we decided to get an expert opinion on BMI measurement and the viability of Wii Fit as a platform for promoting exercise in our overweight nation.

To get an informed take on Wii Fit and the merits of Body Mass Index measurement (BMI), we spoke to Dr. Judith S. Stern, a distinguished professor of Nutrition and Internal Medicine at the University of California, Davis. An expert on diet and nutrition, Stern has published extensively on nutrition, obesity, and the effect of exercise on appetite and metabolism. She is co-founder of The American Obesity Association, a lay advocacy organization dedicated to advancing understanding of the condition of obesity.

GameSpy: Nintendo's Wii Fit is launching tomorrow in the United States. The idea is that with Wii Fit, people who would normally play games on their couch will get up, get active, and use the Balance Board to improve their personal fitness. What do you think of the premise behind Wii Fit, where using the game will help reduce your BMI?

Dr. Judith Stern: My understanding is that Nintendo is saying that if you track BMI, and by using this program, that you'll improve your BMI, or lower your BMI. I say baloney to that. In fact, I'm sure you'll see very little change in BMI. It's not just BMI you want to look at, but how fat you are.

When you are physically fit, you tend to replace fat with muscle, and your BMI probably won't change. It will change when you do extreme things, like if you exercise for two or three hours a day, I'm pretty sure your BMI will change. If you've just lost weight, you can maintain your BMI more readily with exercise, but I don't see anything that shows me that BMI will change, and I really think it's false and misleading.

The rest of the interview here:

http://wii.gamespy.com/

http://wii.gamespy.com/wii/wii-fit/875451p1.html 

Anyone using Wii-Fit for fitness purposes is obviosuly deceiving themselves

Link is broken.

Sounds like the doctor hasn't played the game and is just guessing. Obviously they can not find someone who has actually tried it to give negative comments.

No, anyone that uses Wii Fit to build muscle mass is fooling themselves. Anyone that uses it to stay fit and active is using it for exactly what it was meant to do.

Wii Fit doesn't really build muscle, it's aerobic exercises, they aren't meant to build muscle. Aerobic exercises are meant to keep you in shape and keep you healthy. Because of that, BMI more or less works for Wii Fit (as much as just tracking BMI can work alone).

-edit-

And yeah, it has been proven time and time again that you can find some random person who has never played the game and knows nothing about it other than the name who are willing to call themselves an expert on it. 

I don't know what happened to the link...

I will post the interview here:

GameSpy: Nintendo's Wii Fit is launching tomorrow in the United States. The idea is that with Wii Fit, people who would normally play games on their couch will get up, get active, and use the Balance Board to improve their personal fitness. What do you think of the premise behind Wii Fit, where using the game will help reduce your BMI?

Dr. Judith Stern: My understanding is that Nintendo is saying that if you track BMI, and by using this program, that you'll improve your BMI, or lower your BMI. I say baloney to that. In fact, I'm sure you'll see very little change in BMI. It's not just BMI you want to look at, but how fat you are.

When you are physically fit, you tend to replace fat with muscle, and your BMI probably won't change. It will change when you do extreme things, like if you exercise for two or three hours a day, I'm pretty sure your BMI will change. If you've just lost weight, you can maintain your BMI more readily with exercise, but I don't see anything that shows me that BMI will change, and I really think it's false and misleading.

Are you overweight? Or just athletic? How can Wii Fit know?

Dr. Judith Stern: BMI measures indirectly. You're looking at your weight relative to your height. And so a normal BMI goes up to 24.9. If you're overweight, by this definition, it goes 25-29.9. Obese is 30 and above, very obese is 40 and above. For example, if you're 5'5", and have a BMI of 30, you weigh about 180 pounds. So clearly 180 pounds for someone who's 5'5" is obese, and probably body fat is increased. If you are very muscular and very active, you can have a high BMI but not be unfit or too fat. So when you look at BMI in a range of 25 and 29.9, you're not sure what that means.

In fact, there are different BMI criteria for people of different ethnicities. For example, for people who are Asian-American, Type 2 diabetes begins to increase with BMIs of about 23. If you're African-American, probably an overweight BMI shouldn't start until a BMI of 28, because you are more muscular if you're African-American, and also your body density is higher.

Dr. Judith Stern: Well, it's different, not a misstep. What is a misstep here is using BMI as an index of fitness. There's no basis for that. And it promises you something that it can't deliver.

Dr. Judith Stern: How long it would take you to be exhausted, time to exhaustion, say if you're riding a bike or running...

Dr. Judith Stern: Right. You'll hit a maximum heart rate and then you won't be able to run anymore. That does aerobic capacity. If you want to look at strength training, clearly it's the amount of weight that you can lift. Those are simple ways of doing it, and physicians can evaluate people that way. Also, people in the physical fitness area can also evaluate people that way.

But you ask me, "Can physicians use this?" What I think is helpful for physicians to use is to look at change in BMI. Let's say you're twenty, and your BMI is about 23. So now you've just become forty, and your BMI is about 33. That isn't all muscle. It's excess fat, and that's not good for your health. So if you measure BMI change, and a physician does it, that can help. And you look at other things. Is your blood pressure high, is your glucose high, and what's happening specifically. Weight loss can improve these conditions.

GameSpy: So the basic idea behind Wii Fit, where using it will help lower your BMI, you're saying it's unlikely?

Dr. Judith Stern: It's unlikely. You really have to exercise a whole lot, and also you have to eat less.

GameSpy: But starting an exercise routine based around Wii Fit or integrating it into your existing exercise routine could help, no?

Dr. Judith Stern: Well, I don't think it will help you at all with BMI, but it may help you be a bit healthier. I don't think you'll see changes in BMI. Certainly with a lot of women, they want to see changes in BMI. They want to see BMI go down, and this won't do that.

GameSpy: What should women be doing if they want to see BMI go down? Should they adopt a strict exercise regimen?

Dr. Judith Stern: Right, but I'm not saying strict, it can still be flexible. Let's say you decide you want to be active by walking. Let's say you walk 2500 steps a day, which is pretty inactive. So you set goals, just like Wii Fit. You say, "OK, this week I'm going to add another 500 steps," and it doesn't matter when I do it. If I do it this morning by walking a long distance to my car, or go out and take a walk after I get home, that's just fine. You have the freedom to say when you're going to do this, and I think a pedometer is very useful. But it doesn't have to be continuous exercise, just like Wii Fit isn't continuous.

Wii Fit allows you to set personal goals on the road to self-improvement.

GameSpy: So Wii Fit as part of an exercise routine isn't what you'd recommend, or do you feel that people should consider it?

Dr. Judith Stern: They can consider it. But the way it's set up, it's unlikely to help people lose weight. I don't see any proof that it works. Also, I think people will buy this and not stick with it.

GameSpy: Do you feel that younger people in particular can be adversely affected by the BMI measurement? It doesn't take into account younger frames, different body types, bone density, and so on?

Dr. Judith Stern: BMI is used as a surrogate, and you're right, it's simplistic. But younger people, below 20 or so, you can't just use BMI. You have to do BMI for age. And then, boys have a different reference to look at versus girls. Let's say you're 15, and you say your BMI is 25. I'd really have to look at your height to see if it was in the overweight category. Doctors will look at BMI change for age, and it's not just BMI for kids.

GameSpy: One of the most important concerns we have with the game is regarding the terminology and very blunt approach that the game uses. According to a message board post from a European Wii Fit owner, a step-father's ten-year old daughter was told by Wii Fit that she was overweight. According to him, "she was devastated to be called fat and we had to work hard to convince her she isn't."

Dr. Judith Stern: You're absolutely, totally right. You don't tell kids that they're overweight. In fact, pediatricians don't use the word obese for kids. The word that they use for overweight really means obese. This can have such a negative effect on young girls especially, that they can focus on eating and develop eating disorders.

GameSpy: What would you advise to parents of young daughters who want to get Wii Fit?

Dr. Judith Stern: I don't think you should use BMI to track them. I also don't think that you should tell young girls that they're overweight. They can use Wii Fit if they want to be a little bit more active, or if it makes them feel good about themselves. Doing it in a group would also work. But tracking BMI for age and telling them that they're overweight? Give me a break.

GameSpy: There could be potentially serious repercussions if their BMI doesn't decrease?

Dr. Judith Stern: The repercussions could be, with young girls, that they can develop eating disorders. They can become even more conscious about their weight, and you know they're already being teased about it.

 

Source:

http://wii.gamespy.com/ 

 

 

 

 I agree 100%. I hate working out. I need something that will help me exercise, and not realize that I am exercising. I hope WiiFit ends up doing a great job of deceiving me. ;)

lol, yeah, after reading the interview they pretty much just asked a random doctor questions that would lead to negative answers. They guy has never looked at Wii Fit and only knows that it uses BMI.

This Dr. fails. Wii fit is not for building muscle, you will not gain any significant amount of muscle unless you just do pushups over and over and over and over. Almost all the exercises on there have to do with losing calories and getting slimmer. The hoola hoop, ski, running, yoga are good examples of this.

Something is popular = "Experts" talk bad about it.

It's always like that. You do not get readers by saying something that is said to be great is great, you get readers by saying why it sucks.

Maybe short-term.  However, if said readers figure out what they have been reading from you turns out to be false, they will avoid reading and trusting you in the future.  That is a big risk for something this popular.