Nintendo apologises to Wii Fit players

By Robert Purchese Published 19 May, 2008

BMI system might not always be accurate.

Nintendo has admitted that Wii Fit body fat readings may not be accurate for younger players, nor for sporty people carrying lots of muscle mass.

The platform holder was responding to criticism from British newspaper the Daily Mail, which heard from one troubled father that his young and supposedly athletic daughter had been devastated to find out she was "fat" according to the game.

He said it was the last thing she needed to hear in the face of today's stick-sized obsessiveness.

His comments prompted Tam Fry of the National Obesity Forum to declare that the "far from perfect" BMI system should "simply should not be used" with children, and that Wii Fit should at least carry a warning for parents preparing them for misleading results.

"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," responded Nintendo in an official statement.

"As stated in the Wii Fit manual, BMI is essentially a measure of body fat, based on an adult height and weight. Wii Fit is still capable of measuring the BMI for people aged between 2 and 20 but the resulting figures may not be entirely accurate for younger age groups due to varying levels of development.

"People with more muscle mass than normal will also have a higher BMI rating due to the heavy weight of muscle tissue, so the resulting figures should be used for reference purposes only," added the statement.

Nintendo went on to say that it was the "best generic" scale for measuring progress in its game, as the BMI system is "widely used within the medical and fitness professions".

You can also hide your on-screen weight and class yourself as a Guest so you do not have to take part in the BMI measuring process.

Wii Fit was released in Europe at the end of April and sells in shops for GBP 70 with the fancy Wii Balance Board.

We dressed Ellie up in Lycra to put it through its paces. Pop over to her Wii Fit review to find out what she thought.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (53) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Eraysor #1 4 years ago

    I wish I had enough money to get this, but ordering Rock Band has eaten my funds!

  • LazyDan #2 4 years ago

    Fucking thing called me obese and made my Mii fat >:(

    I'm calling my lawyer.

  • Paolo_ray #3 4 years ago

    Ah! I love the Daily mail. Oh, when I say 'love' I mean loathe with every fibre of my being.

  • XdarXideX #4 4 years ago

    I'm going to have to read the manual before commenting against the claims but I would assume that it doesn't say that the BMI test studies just your body fat levels.

    Clearly it's not common knowledge that muscle mass weighs more than fat. A fault of physical education in schools... not nintendo! I don't see why anyone takes comments made by the Daily Mail seriously anyway. 95% of their articles are complete bullshit anyway.
    Edited by 1 at 19/05/08 @ 09:24

  • AcidSnake #5 4 years ago

    They should try reading the manual next time...

  • Prodigy_BE #6 4 years ago

    is it just me, or does anybody else think Wii Fat would also be a cool name... you know, for the American market.

  • Eraser #7 4 years ago

    The game doesn't use the term "fat" anywhere either. It uses "overweight" and "obese".

  • monkie_king #8 4 years ago

    Daily Fail.

  • Greebo #9 4 years ago


    "The game doesn't use the term "fat" anywhere either. It uses "overweight" and "obese"."

    Sadly The Daily Mail has no time to check its facts . . .

  • Arnold__ #10 4 years ago

    Appears that to some of the readers here their beloved Ninty can do no wrong? Not too surprised by die news, the Wii/Wiifit thingy clearly cannot be taken seriously. It is a toy for the kids and the elderly, nothing more.

  • _Price_ #11 4 years ago

    The BMI system is horribly outdated. As the article states it simply doesn't take into account enough factors to give an accurate representation of someone's fitness. Almost every professional rugby player comes out as 'obese' on the index, not exactly something that you'd want to try and argue out with them....

  • QPRHOOPS81 #12 4 years ago

    i bet she probally was a tubber though.

  • MENTAL1ST Verified Senior Software Engineer, Picsel UK Ltd. #13 4 years ago

    "Tam Fry" gives me a mental image of a great big Glaswegian fellow who eats nothing but deep-fried pizza suppers.

  • monkie_king #14 4 years ago

    A tam is that big floppy tartan beret thing that bagpipists and other Scottish wear, isn't it? I wouldn't be terribly surprised if it's a Glaswegian delicacy to batter one of those and chuck it in the fryer. Can't be good for the BMI though.


  • thewolfiv #15 4 years ago

    her dad said she was well built but not fat......nice way of saying shes fat if you ask me. People should wise up to papers like these they just spout crap 24/7, anyone with a bit of sense knows that this is a game that gets you to excercise while playing and should not be considered the final say on your health, and as someone stated i can't dream of a nintendo product being so nasty as to call you fat. (bet she eats chips everyday!)

  • Heitzu #16 4 years ago

    As others have said I'm almost certain it says in the manual that it can weigh between ages 2-20 but may be inaccurate due to constant changes in a child's development, and it also says if your muscular that might mean its inaccurate.

    However as evidenced by many no body ever reads the manual.

  • Laika #17 4 years ago

    "Daily Fail."

    +1

  • FooAtari #18 4 years ago

    Sometimes I thinks gamers are as bad as the mainstream press. They shoot down any piece of negative news weather there might be some truth in it or not.

    While this news may be a bit sensationalist there is no doubt an issue with weight and teenagers, especially girls, who are very impressionable and sensitive to these issues in the face of weight obsessed perfect models and celebrates. Perhaps Nintendo should have made any discrepancies in the system more clear and explained them during the game, the go to great lengths to explain other things during games, such as taking breaks...

    If you are going to target the family image and casual/non-gamers it's these kind of people (the girls father) you are selling your product too and they have to cater for that.

    Most people don't read manuals, again this is the kind of people they are targeting, people who just expect things to work and therefor not read the manual. Isn't that why Nintendo explain nearly every detail of the controls during the game and make them easy to pick and play?
    Edited by 1 at 19/05/08 @ 10:26

  • tobsen #19 4 years ago

    If this girl really would have been "athletic", she wouldn't have been "devastated" by her supposedly incorrect Wii Fit assessment.

  • DDevil #20 4 years ago

    Wii Fit called me fat as well. Not obese or whatever, but fat.

    Not that I'm bothered. It's quite right. I am fat.

  • xandoodle #21 4 years ago

    Its hardly gaming news... Nintendo shouldn't have responded...

    Their forced to defend the BMI. What?!

  • Mr_Brown #22 4 years ago

    BMI has never been accurate. Its well known that someone of who is well built with mucsle on the BMI scale will be shown to be obese. Its a system used on a wide scale in the medical profession and has been critisised for a long time, yet its still used and a good indicator for most people.

    Has someone has already pointed out, its not Nintendos fault, more the NHS/medical profession who so widely use it and by doing so, made it the obvious scale to use for a fitness game.

  • Heitzu #23 4 years ago

    Oh I thought I should add that my 14 year old brother uses it too and it mentions before the weighing or just after not sure which but anyway, that it may be inaccurate, so the real problem here is that the girl can't read. Either that or her parents aint looking after her correctly.

    I'm not actively defending Nintendo by the way I'm just stating the facts which some newspapers neglect to mention as it ruins a good story.

  • JeroenZM #24 4 years ago

    I played Wii Fit earlier and not only did it say I was fat, it also called my mum a skank. It's accuracy is astonishing!

  • rhubarbandcustard #25 4 years ago

    Anyone using rugby players as an example of how BMI is flawed are making a bad call.

    Take a bodybuilder and a rugby player of a similar height and build and then look at their weights. The rugby player will always be a couple of stone heavier. Why? They need to increase their weight mass for battles on the pitch. That additional mass is fat. Therefore BMI is pretty accurate.

    Once rugby players stop hitting the weights and their muscles shrink all that is left is their body fat. Lots and lots of body fat.

    Tubbies.

  • ianegg #26 4 years ago

    BMI is the closest thing we have to measuring fat though. It's not like a pair of scales can take into account muscle mass, body structure, etc unless you can programme that in as extra uncountable weight, which Wii Fit can sort of do, when it asks you for the weight of clothes.

    The closest thing we have to measuring fat is measureing fat.... You can go and get submersed in water then weighed, and they can quite accurately calculate fat from that. Obviously a computer game's not going to come with a water tank and a set of waterproof scientific scales. You can also get scales that send electrical impulses through your feet and then tell you your fat, water, muscle and bone masses. They're not cheap though, and it would be pointless putting them into the wii board. I agree with your other points, I just need to point out that BMI is far from the closest we have to measuring anything.

    edit: tags...
    Edited by 1 at 19/05/08 @ 11:05

  • Charlie_Miso #27 4 years ago

    Harden up little girl.

  • mingster #28 4 years ago

    i actually don't know what BMI is.
    What ever happened to those scales that said .. 'i speak your weight'
    whats the differnce

  • chrisjm #29 4 years ago

    "I'm not fat, im big boned"

  • mingster #30 4 years ago

    I'm not fat - I'm big BMI'd

  • monkie_king #31 4 years ago

    This thread is useless without pics.

  • L42yB #32 4 years ago

    the "far from perfect" BMI system should "simply should not be used" with children

    BMI is useless and should not be used for anyone. It is simply a measure of your height divided by your weight. This does not take into account:

    - How broad your shoulders are
    - The amount of mass which is muscle vs fat
    - Bone density
    - Generally different body shapes

    I find it appaling that insurance companies and medical practices actually use BMI for anything when the result is so clearly irrelevant. To say that someone who is a certain height should weigh a certain amount in order to be healthy is absolutely ridiculous.

  • smelly #33 4 years ago

    "I don't see why anyone takes comments made by the Daily Mail seriously anyway. 95% of their articles are complete bullshit anyway."

    Unfortunately the mail has a LARGE (pun intended) reader base who DO believe all this shit

  • bioreit #34 4 years ago

    I've had major battles with two of my recent doctors, as well as other people who are supposedly knowledgeable about health matters (two PE teachers for instance), as well as a fair few gym instructors - they have all tutted at me for my BMI over the last two years, as it is 34, putting me in the 'clinically obese scale'. This is in spite of the fact that it is very clearly NOT fat, but muscle that contributes to my mass.

    My heart has been tested and is perfectly fine with the extra weight, I have an excellent resting heart rate and my upper rate is well within normal bounds, but simply because of the weight-to-height mathematics of the BMI, apparent professionals have lectured me about eating 'right' and being 'healthy', all because of my BMI. There is not a single thing 'wrong' with me or my lifestyle, but because fo the high BMI figure, I am assumed to be in poor health.

    Conversely, my friend at work was diagnosed with malnutrition last year, because all she ate was burger and chips, or pizza. She also smokes 40 a day and binge drinks at weekends. But her doctor and her gym instructor both professed amazement at the announcement, because her BMI was 22.

    So, as much as it pains me to say it, the Daily Mail was right to bring attention to this. I don't think they should be going after Nintendo per se, but rather should be trying to change the attitudes of so many professionals and non-professionals, who use the BMI as the absolute be-all and end-all of health measurement.

    Of course, the Mail won't do that because it's not a good headline, but hopefully some other publication or institution will do the proper job and get idiotic attitudes changed.

  • NickD7 #35 4 years ago

    Wiifit called me a fat cunt yesterday, this thing is getting more nasty as the days go by.

  • jonsaan #36 4 years ago

    To be honest. Wiifit told my streak of piss 7 year old that he was obese. It didn't take a brain surgeon to make us realise it was wrong.

  • NickD7 #37 4 years ago

    Oh and I love how gamers feel they are the authority to comment on anything to do with fitness. Last time I checked gamers were the laziest people on the planet who play games just so they can park their ass on the couch for 5+ hours a day.

    Moving your thumbs on a controller or fapping a lot doesn't mean you are fit or know about fitness.

  • arcanis22 #38 4 years ago

    I'd like to apolagise in advance for going off topic but I thought it might be a good idea to show what type of paper the Daily Mail really is.

    A senior reporter for the paper (Nick Davies) once told how he had travelled 300 miles to report on a story of a young woman and her two children, all of whom had been recently murdered. He was nearly at his destination when he got a call from the Mail telling him to turn back and not report the murder because "They're Black".

    Davies went on to comment: "Perhaps I have been unlucky, but I have never come across a reporter from the Daily Mail who did not have some similar story, of black people being excluded from the paper because of their colour"

    So personally I really don't give a fuck what they say about anything I'd be inclined to do the exact opposite rather than listen to the rantings of a racist paper thats more concerned with the colour of peoples skin than reporting the truth in an honest and fair way.

  • Prodigy_BE #39 4 years ago

    Maybe she wasn't fat, but she was just not tall enough.

  • thepiedpiper #40 4 years ago

    ah so it was all my muscles that made me fat... i see

  • BobsUncle #41 4 years ago

    When I first heard the Wii Fit measures fat levels I was interested to see how they'd implemented the electrode setup like proper fat measurement equipment uses. I then discovered it was just a set of white weighing scales and had to laugh.

    I can't honestly see why you need the board after the initial setup and intermittent weighing it must occasionally do. They might as well just have sold the game and a mat to do exercises on and said "Please have your body weight handy".

    Can anyone tell me why you need the board during the workout?

  • LiamK #42 4 years ago

    Whenever BMI comes up people always say "if you put a professional rugby player on there then they would come up as being obese". Which is true. It also ignored two important facts:

    1/ Professional rugby players would know this sort of thing anyway, and
    2/ Exactly what percentage of the Wii Fit owning population are professional rugby players.

    So, yes, the game might report someone as being obese when they are actually just full of muscle and hardness. However, it's far more likely that the person is, actually, a bit fat.

    And as to it causing an epidemic of girls throwing up in order to get healthy, surely that would only work if their BMI is above 20? Otherwise they'll start stuffing themselves to make sure they are not underweight.

  • MENTAL1ST Verified Senior Software Engineer, Picsel UK Ltd. #43 4 years ago

    Can anyone tell me why you need the board during the workout?

    I think you need to balance on it.

    Clue's in the question, say what you see...
    Edited by 1 at 19/05/08 @ 13:29

  • ED209 #44 4 years ago

    It tells you in real time where you centre of gravity is so it can roughly tell if you are doing exercises properly, and also registers changing in weight (like stepping on and off) so it knows if you've fallen over or are doing step workouts in rhythm to the on screen icons, and you can do balancing games (walk a tight rope, roll a ball about , like screwball scramble). So it's slightly smarter than an ordinary set of scales. It's more like one scale sitting atop 4 scales at each corner.

  • KreyAtiv #45 4 years ago

    At least it didn't say "One at a time please" when she got onto it.

  • twinbee #46 4 years ago

    It doesn't even call you fat! I have no idea why Nintendo apologised.

  • dk_rare #47 4 years ago

    Most kids should probably be told more often that they are fat. Obesity is running rampant in children and there is a world food shortage (lol).

  • kangarootoo #48 4 years ago

    "BMI is the closest thing we have to measuring fat though."

    With the proper kit you can measure body fat accurrately as a percentage, regardless of your other statistics. A pair of white plastic scales are not up to that job however so they have to use the woefully misleading BMI.

    Some people on here are saying it doesn't actually call you fat, but others are saying it does. Screenshots and proof anyone?

    There are two issues going on here afai can see.

    1. BMI is rubbish.
    2. No video game or fitness product should not its user fat under any circumstances. Fat is not a medical term.

    So, point 1 seems to be pretty much agreed on this thread. Point 2 needs some clarification.

  • BobsUncle #49 4 years ago

    "I think you need to balance on it."

    So does it wobble or something? so you actually have to work to maintain your balance, or is it totally rigid, a bit like standing on the floor. I can't see where the 'Balance' bit comes from.

    The only thing I could see it being able to do is sense which foot you're standing on. Which most people would be able to work out for themselves anyway.

    edit:
    @ED209 "It tells you in real time where you centre of gravity is so it can roughly tell if you are doing exercises properly"

    Ohhhh... Didn't read that. Well, I'm kinda underwhelmed. Does it also get your position wrong most of the time like the crappy controllers do. :-)
    Edited by 1 at 19/05/08 @ 14:09

  • L42yB #50 4 years ago

    @LiamK -

    BMI is just your height to weight ratio. Do you honestly believe that you can ascertain a persons ideal weight (ideal meaning the weight at which they will be at optimum health) based on how tall they are? Of course you can't. You cannot even get a decent estimation and the "rubgy player" example is just using an extreme to show that muscle to fat ratios are not taken into account.

    To use a less extreme example, according to the BMI, Brad Pitt in fight club was "obese" and George Clooney in Oceans 11 was "overweight".

    The truth is, someone who is a healthy weight can show up on the BMI anywhere between "massively underweight" and "obese". My girlfriend is short and has a very slim frame - as a result she always gets rated as underweight by the BMI, but she is very healthy and not skinny at all. To counter this, when I have been overweight I have actually had a lower BMI - and then as I have gotten into shape again and put some muscle back on, I move back towards the obese end of the scale. It is very silly really.

  • grussbarbar #51 4 years ago

    @BobsUncle
    Actually, the Balance Board is extremely accurate in registering your center of gravity. The slightest change in position and weight distribution is immediately registered and used in-game. As such, it's able to turn just about every balancing workout into a minigame, because you have to properly try and maintain perfect balance to get the highest scores.

    I've been very impressed with this piece of hardware; I didn't believe the workouts could stay fun, but they actually do, at least for me. I'd almost say the Wii Fit workouts are a whole new kind of videogames. What I mean: in classic videogames you need good reflexes and in Wiimote powered games, you need good hand-eye coördination. Then, in Wii Fit you need total control over subtle movements of your whole body.

  • kangarootoo #52 4 years ago

    @BobsUncle

    It's not so much the player balancing to stay on the board, as just testing whether they are distributing their weight evenly across the soles of their feet.

    I think its the right tool for the job in a lot of cases, its just that (like the brain training games) they are perhaps making claims that are a touch too bold. Wii Fit is almost certainly good fun and will get the player involved in more strenuous activity than is required by the eating of a cream bun, but it is no replacement for a proper fitness plan or a visit to your GP.

    @LiamK

    Saying that in most cases the person in question is just fat, whilst likely to be true, avoids the issue that BMI is simply not a reliable way of gauging a person's body fat content. If the BMI is not a reliable gauge for determining whether someone is fat, Nintendo shouldn't be saying that it is. Like I said above, its a good product and it will result in some people getting more exercise; it just shouldn't make judgements that it can't reliably back up.


    Still nobody has confirmed whether it calls people fat or not (not since I asked anyway).

  • grussbarbar #53 4 years ago

    @kangarootoo

    I haven't seen the label "fat" used in Wii Fit myself, and I doubt Nintendo would use it. The only screenshot I found online, was the one of Reggie Fils-Aime being measured at E3, and being graded "overweight"
    Link: [link url=ht tp://www.wiihealthy.com/images/helpreggiebmi.jpg
    ]http://ww w.wiihealthy.com/images/helpreg...[/link]

    Also, if I tracked it down correctly, the source of this incident is a post on the DIS boards, in which the poster starts out by saying that Wii Fit called the girl overweight, and then writes she was called fat. It seems to me that the original poster uses overweight and fat as synonyms, thus starting the story that Wii Fit calls you "fat", while I haven't seen it do that so far.
    Link: [link url=ht tp://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?p=24943589
    ]http://ww w.disboards.com/showthread.php?...[/link]

    Of course, the Daily Mail doesn't help by stating that Wii Fit uses the labels "underweight" and "fat", which is very probably misstated for sensationalism. (The only place where I saw Wii Fit use the word "underweight" is in the BMI results screen, which doesn't use the word "fat" but does use the word "overweight"; see Reggie's screenshot above)

  • Nikanoru #54 4 years ago

    today's stick-sized obsessiveness.


    More like, today's obsessiveness with making excuses for being a lazy fat fuck.

  • Merlinho #55 4 years ago

    This girl is on BBC breakfast today. Interesting to see if she's a bloater or not.