There have been a few news articles floating around recently about Wii Fit and its BMI measuring system on children and youth. I just feel like saying a few things on the mattter.

BMI (Body Mass Index) uses height and weight to calculate an estimation as to the overall health of a body. What it doesn’t take into account is age (and also gender causes some differences as well) which means that for bodies that are wonky and still developing that haven’t settled, the measurement can be wildly inaccurate.

It also has no measurement of muscle as compared to fat. Two men of the same height standing side by side, one of them obese and the other built like Schwarzenegger, could have the same BMI. As long as they weight the same and have the same height, they’re identical in the eyes of BMI, and they’ll both likely register as obese.

A better calculation would be Body Fat Percentage. It calculates the amount of body fat in a person. It’s a much more accurate way to see if you’re actually fat compared to muscular, though it would be tough to incorporate into a game. A person would have to know their own amount of body fat to be able to calculate it anyway…

Nintendo has put out a brief word on this themselves.

Nintendo would like to apologise to any customers offended by the in-game terminology used to classify a player’s current BMI status, as part of the BMI measurement system integrated into Wii Fit.

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.

Basically what I’ve said. I think Nintendo should be a little more up-front about this problem, since predictions show Wii Fit being Tickle-Me-Elmo-in-1996 popular, I have a feeling more of these news stories are going to be popping up resulting in a lot of customer relations problems. I think they should even go so far as to patch the program to show a warning screen before BMI is calculated. Perhaps something along the lines of…

Warning: BMI calculations may be inaccurate for those using this program under the age of 20. Don’t get mad at us. If you still feel fat though, buy Wii Fit again, and possibly other Nintendo-developed Wii games. Old people love them! Tell your friends about Nintendo. Myamoto has bills to pay!

So for all you young people (or the hypermuscular) people out there reading this, if Wii Fit calls you fat, chances are you’re not really.

Unless of course, you are. In which case, lose some weight, Tubby.