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wii fit tells 10 year old shes fat.

3K views 76 replies 27 participants last post by  DarkSamus 
#1 ·
sorry i just had to post this here,

The Daily Mail is condemning video games again--and this time it's Nintendo that bears the brunt of its vocal indignation. Although the Wii and DS have been generally insulated from the usual haranguing of traditional video games in such sections of the British press because of their popularity among the elderly, women, and on cruises, family friendly Wii Fit has managed to incur the wrath of the tabloid.

The reason is that an unnamed 10-year-old girl from South East England was told by the game, during its Body Mass Index test, that she was "fat." (Wii Fit actually puts users into a variety of categories, the two heaviest of which are "overweight" and "obese.")

The stepfather of the girl, who didn't want to be named for her sake, said, "She is a perfectly healthy, 4-feet-9-inch-tall 10-year-old who swims, dances, and weighs only six stone. She is solidly built but not fat. She was devastated to be called fat and we had to work hard to convince her she isn't."

The paper then enlisted the opinion of Tam Fry, a spokesperson for the National Obesity Forum, who called for a ban on kids playing the game, presumably meaning she wanted to see it brandishing an 18 age gate sticker. She said, "I am absolutely aghast that children are being told they are fat. A child's BMI can change every month and it is perfectly possible for a child to be stocky, yet still very fit. I would be very concerned if children were using this game and I believe it should carry a warning for parents."

However, Nintendo declined to entertain her suggestion, simply saying, "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."
Wii Fit tells 10-year-old she's fat - GameSpot News Blog - Gaming News and Videos
 
#3 ·
its not realy made to work well with kids (something i never thought id say about a product coming from nintendo but anyway)
 
#6 ·
Nintendo gets awarded a 1-Up from me for calling fat girl fat. :lol: These people really need to get over it. All of this politically correct stuff has really gotten out of hand. Heck, if I made Wii Fit I would have called her a pastry eating fat ****.
 
#7 ·
Nintendo gets awarded a 1-Up from me for calling fat girl fat. :lol: These people really need to get over it. All of this politically correct stuff has really gotten out of hand. Heck, if I made Wii Fit I would have called her a pastry eating fat ****.
Agreed bro, it's getting way out of hand. Ridiculous as it is, for example there was a case in UK recently when a school's receptionist had been suspended 'cause her daughter told about Christ in the classroom. In UK you can no longer call chrismas tree a chrismas tree... And so on and so on. What a bull****.
 
#11 ·
Isn't there a warning in the game saying that the result may not be accurate? (especially with kids?)

AND blaming Wii Fit/Nintendo for the lack of accuracy of the BMI system is just moronic. BMI always had many shortcomings (it can easily call even adults fat when they aren't, you're simply supposed to USE YOUR OWN BRAIN to see when it's not accurate for you x_x), but now all of a sudden it warrants a age limit when used in a game?
Man, for people who want to protect their kids, they sure are doing a poor job.
 
#13 ·
Wow... If you ever get kids, I really feel sorry for them...
Nintendo gets awarded a 1-Up from me for calling fat girl fat. :lol: These people really need to get over it. All of this politically correct stuff has really gotten out of hand. Heck, if I made Wii Fit I would have called her a pastry eating fat ****.
Agreed bro, it's getting way out of hand. Ridiculous as it is, for example there was a case in UK recently when a school's receptionist had been suspended 'cause her daughter told about Christ in the classroom. In UK you can no longer call chrismas tree a chrismas tree... And so on and so on. What a bull****.
Looks like other people agree with me. :p
 
#14 ·
Well, for the sake of argument, Wii Fit asks for a bunch of stuffs, ranging from age, height, weight, and it also measures your balance (relative to the gravity vector at the place you are standing, I suppose), and also does a lot of other calculations like pressure of your weight on the board in exercises, and stuffs... before it gives the final conclusion. So I have to assume that after all those calculations the margin of errors is too tiny to be of concern. That aside, the balance test also proves that it has more sensors than your average scale.

Now... it also reports your BMI number in details, so if it's just barely at the line between Fat and Healthy, you can assume that you're either Fat or Healthy because of the margin of error (usually .1 error, I think). But if it's blatantly above the error margin, then you just gotta accept the results. :p

Of course I would talk with the little miss about how children are still growing, and that there's still a chance that she will be normal or healthy the next week, but I wouldn't lie about her being NOT fat if that is what she actually is. I would tell it to her face that she seems a bit chubby, and that maybe she needs to exercise a bit more, or cut back on her snacks if she would like to be slimmer.

There's a difference between being mean to kids and being honest to kids, yeah? ;) Plus... I guess Europe has a different standard for "fat" and "healthy" people. Well-built? Oh yeah... ever heard of muscular 10-year-old... "girl"? :lol:
 
#16 ·
Wii fit is rubbish to get fit with in the first place and using BMI and whatever else to determine if someone is fat or slim or whatever is just plain silly. To get worked up over what the game tells you if you are fat tough, is grounds for stupidity. She swims, dances and is generally a normal girl for her age, so why the ****storm? (oh wait, it's the Daily Mail.....)
 
#17 · (Edited)
On the other side of the spectrum, obese people could feel offended to hear that theyre overweight, and sue.

A compromise could be that the next version of Wii Fit no longer include any further references to overweightism, and declares everyone slim, fit and very sportive (including WiiFit addict sumo fighters).

Doesnt WiiFit and similar games specifically include opening remainders that they are only games, and neither safe from error or are a real consultant or alternative to realworld consultants ?
 
#21 ·
But if it's the truth, can you really say "OMFG game sed im fat!!!1!!"?
I mean, it'd be like suing doctors when they tell you that you are sick.

Most people tend to overreact when they hear things they don't like, no matter the topic being discussed. Also, didn't Yahoo! put something like this in their front page a few months ago(about someone of age 12 or so)?
 
#22 ·
After my 3rd open heart surgery my weight shot up due to inactivity due to illness. Right now after my 4th surgery, I've been trying to lose weight, but until the weather clears up a bit, I'm unable to do much exercise. I'm hoping this spring and summer to take more walks and exercise daily.

Having said that I left a volunteer job after getting harassed about my big fat belly, they would have never done that to a female, but in today's PC society you can mock fat men all you want, but any comments regarding weight to women is sexual harassment, that's a nice double standard if you're a woman, but then again, *real* men have no feelings.
 
#24 ·
But if it's the truth, can you really say "OMFG game sed im fat!!!1!!"?
I mean, it'd be like suing doctors when they tell you that you are sick.

Most people tend to overreact when they hear things they don't like, no matter the topic being discussed. Also, didn't Yahoo! put something like this in their front page a few months ago(about someone of age 12 or so)?
Much like how you can't make jokes/racial stereotypes, even though most of the time they statistically tend to be true... People just don't like to hear the truth nowadays. That's why our society can't address issues so that they can be fixed, because they are in fear of being called insensitive or bigots. Look at T-shirt hell. They're closing down their business because they got tired of hearing people complain about their offensive shirts.
 
#25 ·
After my 3rd open heart surgery my weight shot up due to inactivity due to illness. Right now after my 4th surgery, I've been trying to lose weight, but until the weather clears up a bit, I'm unable to do much exercise. I'm hoping this spring and summer to take more walks and exercise daily.

Having said that I left a volunteer job after getting harassed about my big fat belly, they would have never done that to a female, but in today's PC society you can mock fat men all you want, but any comments regarding weight to women is sexual harassment, that's a nice double standard if you're a woman, but then again, *real* men have no feelings.
I understand your situation. What I mean is, there's a difference between telling the truth and being harsh. What the game does is tell you "You have more weight than you should have to be relatively healthy. Try this to get healthier". What they did to you at your job was simply mock you.

The problem nowadays is that most people overreact to the first(without a good reason). That'd be the case of the girl in the news. She's young and growing. It's normal for her to be overweight. It'd be entirely another matter after age 17 or so, when the body stabilizes when it comes to height.
 
#26 ·
I think sometimes its more important to how you say something than what you are saying, how you come across presenting a message can be even more important than the message you are delivering. You may be in the right and be speaking the truth but if you do it the wrong way you won't accomplish anything meaningful or positive.
 
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