Nintendo Wii Games Really Do Exercise You

Not long ago, playing Super Mario all day was considered the opposite of exercise.

Too many kids and young adults sitting around, not being active, not going outside, just sitting around eating and pushing buttons.

So when Nintendo Wii came along, it was revolutionary. A video game system that actually requires you to exercise, genius!

But does it actually work? Do those neat controllers and fancy video games really get people moving? A new study says yes.

Presented at this year’s American Heart Association Scientific Sessions meeting, Nintendo-funded research claims one-third of Wii’s games, like Wii Sport and Wii Fit packages, provide people with moderate intensity exercise.

Wii Fit showed it could get gamers’ exercise intensity as high as 5.6 METS, short for metabolic equivalent values, which are used to measure energy expenditure. Intense exercise starts at 6.0 METS. So not too bad for a video game!

But not all games are created equal. Wii Baseball and Wii Tennis scored 3.0 METS, but Wii Golf only worked up 2.0 METS.

Too bad those gaming systems are so expensive, that’s probably why most people stick to Minesweeper, which scores a 100 on the aggravation scale.

Via Reuters.

Image credit: 3lib.ukonline.co.uk