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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?
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 :)
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 theory, as a non-profit charity dedicated to reducing the incidence and impact of heart disease, the AHA should be making its endorsements on the basis of some sort of measure of validity, not selling the rights to use the AHA logo as a purely commercial transaction.
Now presumably they did actually evaluate these games, but it sure gives the appearance of something being a bit more commercial than charitable if they gave their endorsement of these games in return for a $1.5 million donation.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
The thing is that there are scales of exercise. For a morbidly obese person playing a wii game might be a good workout. For somebody who is already very fit it might be of no benefit at all.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
For somebody who is already very fit it might be of no benefit at all.
That depends on what game you're talking about. I'm sure DDR is probably about as far to the "good workout" end of the spectrum as you can get, so this is probably an extreme example, but you could give Lance Armstrong a DDR mat and copy of the game and after going through a little learning curve I almost guarantee he'd be getting a good workout with it.
People get good exercise with a good exercise DVD and they're just sitting in front of the TV; why can't you get good exercise if you replace the DVD with a video game?
It's what Dr. Mario ordered!
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
People get good exercise with a good exercise DVD and they're just sitting in front of the TV;
I've been watching aerobics for months now, and I still haven't lost a gram of fat.
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
I'm glad you decided to tell this person that they're wrong even though you don't seem to know what DDR is. You're basically saying Lance Armstrong could never get a work out from an intense aerobic dance routine, and that's just ridiculous. Maybe he wouldn't be as "comfortable" as he would on his bike, be that doesn't make it an illegitimate exercise. Additionally, DDR mats come in plastic and steel varieties, which is something you could have discovered if you did any amount of research before you commented on something you know nothing about.
In theory, as a non-profit charity dedicated to reducing the incidence and impact of heart disease, the AHA should be making its endorsements on the basis of some sort of measure of validity, not selling the rights to use the AHA logo as a purely commercial transaction.
Either way, its a still head and shoulders above a cancer charity endorsing buckets of fried chicken from KFC.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
The more aware people are of their ability to make better choices is a step in the right direction and if a seal on a video game box helps in part to achieve that goal, all the better I say.
I got the wii fit and - to my horror - it said that I was obese. I was always the skinny kid in school and never really paid attention to the scale that would go up 2 pounds a month. It was a real wake up call.
I started exercing using the wii fit games (I really like the obstacle course where you are jumping from ledge to ledge and avoiding giant wrecking balls.) I stopped because my downstairs neighbor started banging on her ceiling.
The embarrassment of being told I was obese (no doctor ever said that to my face) combined with my neighbor thinking her ceiling was going to collapse simple by me running and jumping really inspired me.
In the past 8 months, I have lost close to 60 pounds and am well past the obese range. I have 5 pound to go to no longer being overweight. I still use the wii fit, but as a measuring tool and will start using it for exercise soon since I should be nearing the point where I no longer shake the entire apartment.
The only downside to losing the weight is that I have the same stretch marks as a woman who gave birth. But since it was a lot of work to lose that weight - and since I am already married - I see those as marks of pride and accomplishment.
Applies to most of the medical PR orgs.
I trust my mechanics more than my doctors, and y'all should. Chances are, your mechanics are more honest than your doctors.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
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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...
I lost 20lbs, by going for regular walks and eating less. People still thought I was skinny even before that, but I was *just* under the "obese" line on Wii Fit. I didn't realise until after I lost the weight how much fat I had on me. Though I'm sure some of what I lost will have been muscle, I have been build my weight back up again for the last few months by going to the gym.
If people are too fat then exercise may help, but the obvious thing to do is to stop eating and drinking sugar/white flour enhanced shit and fries. They both raise your blood sugar far too quickly for your body to actually be able to use the energy, and so you end up just storing most of it as fat. I see exercise as a way to build muscle and to feel healthy - it's a very simple matter to lose weight through eating more intelligently.
which is totally what she said
But don’t forget that that limit for “when you’re obese” is only a rough average. Some people would become very sick when they would have to adhere to those standards.
Get to the weight that you yourself feel best with. (Obviously that isn’t a good idea of your feeling itself is off, like with anorexia.)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
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.