Back when you were a kid… many, many moons ago… the neighborhood was a flurry of activity – bicycles, footballs, games of tag, puppies, foot races, and hula-hoops. Today’s kids are sequestered away in their friends’ living rooms, playing video game after video game while eating microwavable pizzas and conveniently forgetting about their homework. The media began to decry the video game industry for “making our kids obese and lazy.” Thankfully, video game creators took note and came up with the concept for Wii Fit – a video game that incorporated physical activity, exercise and health assessment tools into its game structure. But is Wii Fit a viable substitute for running outdoors or playing racquetball at the gym?
According to Liverpool John Moores University, there can be some good achiever by Wii and Wii Fit games, but like any type of exercise, you’ve got to put the honest effort in. Children playing sedentary games have an average heart rate of 83 beats per minute, compared to 130 beats per minute engaged in Wii Fitness activities. A child who games an average of 12 hours per work burns an average of 1,830 calories per week. If you play Will Sports for 12.2 hours a week, you could lose 27 pounds over the course of a year. LiveStrong recommends Wii Fit games like the Single Arm Stand, Basic Run, Hula Hoop, Push Up and Side Plank, and Advanced Step for the best weight loss.
Expert fitness trainers warn that nothing can substitute a good hard hour of slogging away at the gym, but adding Wii Fit to your regimen is a fun way to track your progress, entertain yourself and add healthy activity to those days you can’t get to the gym.
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I feel like the Wii is great at getting you to be excited
about exercise. You need some form of exercise outside of the Wii
to really get fit though.