Slashdot Mirror
Wii Could Be What the Doctor Ordered
crimeandpunishment writes "The American Heart Association and Nintendo are teaming up to promote Wii. The popular games can be branded with the AHA's logo, to indicate that they're considered a healthy choice. As part of the deal, Nintendo will donate $1.5 million to the AHA. The Heart Association is concerned about childhood obesity, and now concedes that its campaign for traditional forms of exercise just isn't getting through."
Does it really count as a donation if they foresee these AHA-branded games generating at least that much in profit?
Does it really count as an endorsement if the AHA is getting 1.5M for it?
Seems to me to be a fairly straight foreword business deal.
Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
Often on the weekends my sons friends will be at out place to use the wii. They spend more time jumping around in front of the TV than they would spend with a different console but I usually take them out to the school oval to kick a soccer ball around as well. I am sure they get more health benefit from being outside then from being in front of the wii.
How about AHA's logos on normal sporting equipment. Footballs, etc?
http://michaelsmith.id.au
I've been toying with getting one of these for the exact reason to trick myself into doing some sort of activity while I'm idle. Now this just needs to coincide with a new advertising campaign and price-cut :)
As Richard Pryor said, "Fire is an inspiration!" When you are on fire, you will move your ass.
Fight Spammers!
The AHA should endorse stray rabid rottweilers. They are a great way to get people more interested/involved with running.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
In Red Steel 2 (it uses the friggin Motion+) you can configure with how much force the Wiimote has to be swung for correctly executing a sword slash.
I thought it was a funny idea to crank this setting to maximum and beat the game straight in one session. Afterwards I had muscle fever in both arms for about 2 days.
So yeah... there seems to be some truth in the whole "Wii = exercise" marketing.
. . .but it is not what I would call a healthy lifestyle choice. There are lots of sports and other active hobbies that are inherently fun and also a nice break from staring at a screen.
I have spent some time on some of those games, and yes, they're definitely exercise. More than I get playing with other stuff. (And if I don't want to exercise, well, there's other games for the Wii.)
I think there should be more exercise available in console gaming than hurling controllers and yelling "fuck".
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
No sign of a tub-girl or eel-girl wii game.
The only game that I consider possibly really being heart healthy is something like DDR. That's the only game that can get your heart-rate to whatever level you want and keep it there for extended periods of time. I used to use it a lot before I got a treadmill (for those days when I can't run outside).
It's not shin-friendly though. Best to use a hard pad with shoes.
I had to do some physio for my knee lately, which involved a lot of standing on one foot, while turning your head, or bouncing a ball... all to make you work those knee muscles.
The thing that wrecked my balancing concentration more (and made my knee work harder!) was playing some Wii games where you had to wave the remote around (not just joystick.)
Maybe I should patent that!
It's what Dr. Mario ordered!
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
The AHA are a joke - still recommending low fat diets - without any scientific evidence. (see the Diet Delusion)
Now they are recommending that kids play more video games....
The AHA shouldn't be endorsing video games as healthy.
I know there are excercise *programs* for wii, but lets face it, fitness games for the balance aren't about combatting childhood obesity. They're just trying to slice off a bit of the multibillion dollar "gimmicky excercise routine, because excercising is hard" industry.
Skip guitar hero, and learn to play a real guitar. Skip FIFA soccer, get out and kick the ball around with friends. Bleh. Living isn't as hard as ppl make it out to be. Fucking lazy bastards.
A wii mote doesnt move that much more than a mouse does in a fast paced FPS death match.
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/85bd6f85f7/white-women-s-workout
Funny, but racist though. :P
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Anyone consider that we might be evolving to not require so much exercise?
The AMA and Nintendo is holding back the natural evolution of human beings to be huge fat lazy slobs sitting in front of a computer all day solving all the world's problems virtually! For shame!
At least one small part of our society isn't shunning new technology like the plague.
It's a good tool to help the game freaks who don't want to do anything, get out of the house and get some exercise. I love playing it myself. Thanks, moe http://loose-inches.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSxPtGuikQQ
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&resnum=0&q=wii%20australia%20medically%20necessary&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=nw
I mean- a DOCTOR PRESCRIBED IT...
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
If they GIVE it to me. I'm not going to buy it.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Will health insurance companies reimburse people for Wii purchases?
Yeah I logged a lot of miles peddlin'n my ass to the local arcade to play neogeo and listen to ac/dc but... Hahahahaaaaaa. What a pethetic joke. Good for the heart. Pfffffft.... Keep swinging those chucks little man.
This is the same group who gives (sells) their health-check certification to Berry Burst Triple Berry Cheerios. Your research dollars at work, kids. It's the American way.
If you're looking for science, don't look to the AHA. You'll just find a paper trail leading to product marketing targets. A trail that leads through the wallets of nearly every credentialed medical pundit in the USA.
Meanwhile real scientists are still looking for the holy grail -- that fully randomized, double-blind, placebo controlled clinical trial (not observational or meta study) that offers any evidence that dietary cholesterol or saturated fats contribute to any form of heart disease. Good luck, keep looking, it must be here somewhere, they keep talking about it in the medical journals! Medical science is such a sham.
Tell me how to contribute my money to sponsor real scientific studies, not those product sponsored ones with predetermined outcomes.
Pfizer, Merck and friends won't stop blaming dietary cholesterol until we have governments paying them billions to add statins to the public drinking water. It's coming folks, just watch.
Depends on what gets endorsed, of course. EA Sports Active is actually pretty intense if you follow it in good faith and use a decent resistance band.
The real key: it got me off my butt and moving for a few weeks, then I moved back onto the elliptical machine and got in decent shape for this spring. I can't complain about anything that gets you started & engaged.
This all reminds me of MacDonalds getting the Heart Tick Foundations approval in Australia .....
Tomorrow I'm gonna go see my doctor and ask him a medical prescription for Metroid: Other M.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
So what. Many of us don't want a break from the screen. We also don't like this healthy lifestyle stuff pushed on us either.
Responsibility is an addiction
Virtue is a temptation
Community is a cartel
He did order me to Wee!
...For including the Pokewalker with the DS Pokemon Heartgold game. My son gets to "unlock" playtime for his DS by using the pedometer feature on the Pokewalker (the pedometer is a Nintendo feature, gaming time limits are currently enforced the old fashion way).
It's amazing how much upper body strength you can develop throwing a 14-16lb ball an average of 60 times in 2 hours.
Not to mention lifting a 12 ounce drink a couple hundred times...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Posting as a total coward because I don't want to take the time to fill out whatever it is I need to, I wanted to point out, that Wii boxing actually worked very well to heal an upper back (connective tissue) injury that has been semi-debilitating me for years. A few boxing matches a few times a week for a short while and I haven't had any problems since. Cheaper that doctors and chiropractors to boot.
Is it just me, or is it a sad day when the American Heart Association has to admit defeat and admit that waving your arms around in front of a TV can be counted as progress in promoting health ?
At least for too many urban kids...all the gangbangers, bodies, destruction, and poverty on the wii screen ain't real and can be turned off with a flick of a switch. The kid who lives in inner city America who wants to go down to the park first has be willing to run the gauntlet to get there, and then has to be willing to go the limit to defend their patch of the park.
If we wanted to combat obesity, we'd work to make it safe for kids to go outside again. But not we Americans...apparently due to unhappiness with the deadly efficacy of the gangbangers we can grow ourselves, we let new ones flood over the border.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
Obligatory bash.org quote: Warning: Do not let Dr. Mario touch your genitals! He is not a real doctor!!
.
Excuse: It’s what the doctor ordered. ;)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Fantastic! Don't be surprised if the AHA or the similar associations for diabetes, cancer etc. contacts you with a job offer. With more and more proof amounting that fat intake has nothing to do with the explosion in health problems, they need a new excuse so they can keep getting money from the grain/corn industry for pushing carbohydrates as healthy. You, good sir, have just provided it: Crime
Why don't you google "Myth no pain no gain" and follow some of the links. The entire first page of links is there to tell you that "no pain no gain" is a complete myth. There is no reason at all to work out till it hurts. If you're just starting out your muscles will probably be very sore from not being used in a while, which you probably do need to accept. But once you get past that in the first few weeks there is no reason to go beyond mild discomfort most of the time and you actually need to realize pain is a warning sign from your body and you may be causing yourself injury. If you like the pain, fine. But don't go pushing your masochism on others and pretending it's a virtue.
Actually, I once went to a cardiologist who told me to buy a Wii. I smiled and asked him if he would give me a prescription card for it to see if my insurance would pay for it.
But, in defense of Nintendo, this was a real cardiologist and he did say it with a straight face.
I was wondering if anyone else would get around to DDR. I remember that back when I was in college seven years ago or so, you could walk into any arcade in the country and meet that one guy who was 20 pounds overweight who used to be 80 pounds overweight, and the reason he'd gotten so much closer was just because of DDR. That sucker introduced a certain generation of nerds to the concept of sweating outside of gym class, and it was great.
A lot of people talk about, oh, just go to the gym! Go play some sports! Stop playing stupid video games! But the truth is that motivation matters. If you're not enjoying your workout or your diet, you're not going to hold to it. A better message would be that if you enjoy the Wii, you should get out there and try some different things, try to find some pick-up games of different sports, try things at the gym, go find something active that you enjoy doing. And if you can't find something out there that you enjoy, then by all means, keep swinging that Wiimote. It's better to own a WiiFit and use it four times a week than to own a gym membership and stop using it after a month.
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
Wow, that came off as way to confrontational. I apologize for the tone of that and especially for the last statement.
So how long have you known the root cause of everything?
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
I don't really get your argument. I play soccer often, which I would argue is a heck of a lot more exercise than disc golf. I didn't see any real changes in my body until I started doing P90X workouts inside my home. I don't think whether the climate is controlled has anything to do with a workout...it is how hard you push yourself and the quality of the exercise you are doing. I am not trying to put down disc golf, but unless you are actually running after the disc when you throw it, it isn't going to benefit you more than running 3 miles on a treadmill.
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
Good job being an ass ignoring the established facts surrounding carbohydrates, cholesterol, dietary fats, etc. to make a snide remark. You are sooo cool!
I don't have any game consoles but my sister has the WII Fit and she had me try it out one day while I was at her house. She didn't like it when my first try with the meditation game I beat her record.
I really like the obstacle course where you are jumping from ledge to ledge and avoiding giant wrecking balls.
I liked it too. I guess in retaliation for beating her meditation record she laughed every time I was knocked or jumped off a ledge.
While we were playing with it her son, who's in the Marine Corp, called and I told him I might get one too. She laughed at that too, but later she said she had problems with it. I don't recall what they were but I figured I'd go ahead and save my money. I get exercise riding my bike, rollerblading, and walking.
Should there be a Law?
Rice and a lot of breads and pasta actually have a higher glycemic index than sugar
That really depends. Are the grains refined or whole grain? Whole grains not only have a lower glycemic index but also contains fiber which helps moderate blood sugar. A few months ago I was at a Barnes and Noble and did a backstep to look at a book I caught a glimpse of, Healthy Eating Using the Glycemic Index for Optimal Health. I had an appointment with my personal care coordinator, my doc arranged my seeing her, later and asked her if she knew of the glycemic index and what she thought. She said I should look at the recipes in the book to see if I liked any, so when I did I went ahead and bought it. I then looked more into the index and found more recipes online. My favorite so far is Banana Bread, but I use one cup of whole wheat and one cup of rye and instead of baking a loaf of bread I bake some muffins. I may also add blueberries, another fruit, and or some nuts.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
I know I'm perilously close to be completely-off-the-damn-topic, but what really gets me is the fertilization of lawns. People use herbicides to keep weeds down, which kills off clover -- so grass mixes don't even contain clover anymore. Clover is a nitrogen-fixing plant; a lawn with a decent amount of clover doesn't need to be fertilized as much (if at all).
So am I but if you like gardening humour you may like God and St Francis Discussing lawns.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
First of all, do not Chanel Bags hurry when buying, Footwear is the matter of fashion and style. It is Prada bags advisable the online shop. You can even refer to magazines and fashion blogs to know what type of are in fashion. Gucci bags For instance, women choose strappy for summer Coach Bags and ankle for the winter. The price also play an Louis Vuitton Bags important role in shopping.
Good job being an ass ignoring the established facts surrounding carbohydrates, cholesterol, dietary fats, etc. to make a snide remark. You are sooo cool!
Rather as you threw out the established facts surrounding the essential nature of exercise - the subject of this article? I would suggest that you consult a dietitian regarding your own food intake; there is no little evidence that both the cognitive process and emotional stability can be the casualties of a deficient diet and/or an inability to process essential vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
I would, as politely as can be done, suggest that you stop talking out of your ass about things you obviously know precious little about, apart from the "facts" (dipped in corn syrup and chocolate and rolled in sprinkles) you've been spoon fed by the AHA and their ilk.
Yes, malnutrition is bad for you. What on earth does that have to do with carbohydrates? I just had a huge salad of Chinese cabbage, broccoli, celery and 4 boiled eggs. I've also finished off at least 100g of paranuts today. Does it sound like my body isn't getting enough nutrients..?
Another thing you seem oblivious to is the fact that most vitamins are found in fatty meat. We have essential fatty acids, essential amino acids, but no need what so ever of dietary carbohydrates. That's right. What? You thought you got fat-soluble vitamins from low-/no-fat veggies and bread?
If you cared to actually educate yourself on the subject at hand, you'd know that we evolved to eat meat. In fact, we probably evolved because we had such a high density energy source available, and to get it we needed intelligence and cooperation. We ate a diet consisting almost entirely of meat and fat supplemented by nuts and berries (and the occasional apple now and then) for millions of years and we were fine. Archaeological findings tell us that primitive man was bigger and built more solidly than us. Hell, they didn't even have tooth cavities, because they hardly ate any carbs.
Then comes agriculture, and the industrial revolution. In the decades prior to ~1970 about 11-13% of the American population was obese. Then, Ansel Keys and his fat-phobic peers got their way (and private funding) and in the next 10-20 years the percentage of obese Americans skyrocketed. Same with diabetes, ADHD/ADD, and a host of other so-called "life style" diseases.
Sure, historical evidence and correlation is not the same as a double-blind trial but at some point the numbers in favor of one side of the debacle become so overwhelmingly out of proportion, you just can't ignore the facts anymore. Oh, and for 40 years now AHA, ADA, ACA, etc. have put countless millions (if not billions) of dollars into proving their "saturated fats==high cholesterol==heart disease"-theory, without one single reliable study confirming any relationship between cholesterol and heart disease.
Enough about that, you're not going to listen to reason anyways. Regarding your advice to see my dietician.. Well, I have Diabetes Type 1 (the insulin dependent, "WTF happened?"-type) and yet I am adviced to eat precious little protein compared to how active I am, next to no fat and at least 60% of my daily energy intake from carbohydrates.
Do you know what happens if a Type 1 diabetic tries to eat that much carbohydrates every day? I die. Horribly. First I lose my eyesight, then neuropathy sets in with burning pains so intense it's better to have the extremeties amputated (which is what is done). Then the kidneys fail, and I am left a broken husk of a man. This is near inevitable even with blood glucose measurements several times a day, regular (according to the State) well composed meals, etc.
You know what happens when a Type 1 diabetic eats low carb? Kidneys work flawlessly, blood glucose is completely stable 24 hours a day, concentration and energy levels are higher and more stable than for years. What's even better, I'm taking one shot of 12-hour insulin each morning, down from 12-hour insulin morning and night and quick acting insulin at every damn meal.