Nintendo Wii steers virtual route toward youth fitness

After his light workout at the West Suburban YMCA in Newton last week, 7-year-old Max Melville hardly seemed out of breath. But he did have a complaint. "I feel like I sprained my arm," Melville joked, already eyeing his next activity: hitting the rock-climbing wall at the far end of a converted racquetball court inside the 97-year-old building.

Sore muscles are a common grievance at the Newton Y, where many adults are trying to shake off their spare tires in time for summer. But Melville's "sprain" came from exerting himself while bowling on the new Nintendo Wii video gaming system at the Y, one of 100 of the hard-to-find systems that manufacturer Nintendo has donated to YMCAs nationwide.

Nintendo is trying to position the Wii as an "exergame," alongside the more frenetic Dance Dance Revolution, and virtual reality golf games, which you can also find at the Newton Y.

With almost one in five kids ages 6 to 11 overweight in 2004, according to the US Centers for Disease Control, many athletic directors and pediatricians are looking for anything, even a video game, to get kids to move something other than their thumbs.

There has been no independent research to back up the company's claims, but Nintendo is circulating stories about Wii gamers shedding pounds by playing just 30 minutes per day. One story features a claim by the Philadelphia marketing firm Hall Media Productions that one of its employees lost 9 pounds playing Wii games for a few weeks. Nintendo has also cited a few limited studies that suggest certain video games burn calories faster than others.

Nintendo's exergame pitch seems to have won over Jane Carroll, the West Suburban YMCA's fitness and wellness director.

"The Wii is one way to get inactive kids who love video games moving when they would otherwise be sitting playing these games," Carroll said. "And from there, maybe we can sneak in some nutrition education."

Wii players swing their wireless, motion-sensing Wiimotes as they would racquets, clubs, or swords. And most of the sports games that come with the Wii console are best played standing up.

Using the Wii to pitch a ball at the TV screen at the Y made Max Melville feel as with he was actually bowling.

"It's like virtual reality," he said. "I always wanted to know what it would be like to play some of these sports."

The kids at the Newton Wii (and the staff, for that matter) have also been working up a sweat playing the tennis and boxing games that come with the system.

To reach young people at risk for obesity, athletic directors must learn to speak their language, Carroll said. And that means finding balanced ways to incorporate video games into their play and exercise.

Pediatrician Richard C. Adler has been making the case for exergames since he came across a copy of Dance Dance Revolution in an electronics store in 2004.

"I thought, 'My gosh, I wonder if kids will lose weight playing this,' " he said.

The Wii console system can help contribute to weight loss, Adler said, but probably not as much as DDR, which prompts you to dance vigorously on a special sensor pad connected to your video game console or TV.

The Wii "doesn't seem to be as energetic as DDR," said Adler, who is an assistant professor at the University of Tennessee at Memphis and editor of Metabolic Syndrome and Related Disorders, a quarterly journal about obesity and diabetes.

Nintendo has a way to go before convincing Max's mom, Lynn Melville, that the Wii can provide her son with a workout.

"It isn't exercise," said Lynn Melville, watching kids play the Wii from a balcony above the converted racquetball court. "I'd be bummed, actually, if he spent much time playing that."