The Nintendo Wii-Fit is (apparently) all the rage right now. I've see the ads on the tops of the taxis that drive by in my city. I've heard a bit of the hype in passing. Otherwise? I couldn't be bothered.

Then again, I grew up on Atari and Frogger, so go figure.*

The idea of Wii-Fit is clever and interesting, and it's not something I would flat-out refuse to consider buying. Until I read this: the machine measures your BMI. And then tells you whether or not you are fat.

I guess that throws the whole fit-and-or-fat debate right out the window, huh?

You tell the little Wii-fit machine your age** and your height, and the platform you exercise on weighs you, spitting out your BMI. A number, of course, is not enough. You see, to the people at Nintendo, BMI isn't arbitrary enough. No. The Wii-fit has to then tell you whether your are "underweight," "normal," or "fat."

That's right. Not "overweight." Not "obese." Fat.

Now I am all for making fat a less loaded term. It's an adjective, that means the opposite of "thin." But that's not how most people use that word anymore, nor is BMI a rock-solid indicator for the amount of fat you have. And the Wii-fit measures your BMI each time you play. A person's weight can fluctuate up to five pounds each day. So a machine that tells you fat/normal/fat/normal/normal/normal/fat/fat is just a super-quick way to become utterly paranoid about your weight. As if we weren't before.

With any sort of fitness equipment, there's a bit of a caveat emptor. But the Wii-fit is also marketed at children, specifically those children who are taking our country to hell (hell, I tell you!) because they have velcroed their fat asses to the sofa to do nothing more than stuff potato chips in their faces and suck down gallons of Coke. Because we all know that's just what kids do these days.

Never mind that more children than ever are involved in athletics. But that's beside the point.

The issue was raised when a man's healthy, active, fit ten year old daughter (weighing 84 pounds) was told she was fat after playing Wii Fit. Thankfully, for all of the other families out there, he cried foul, bringing the issue to media attention.

BMI for kids is random and arbitrary at best. Tam Fry, of the National Obesity Forum in the UK, had this to say about the Wii Fit:

"I'm absolutely aghast that children are being told they are fat," he said. "BMI is far from perfect but with children it simply should not be used. 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."

Wii-fit doesn't need to measure your BMI to work properly. I'm no super-geek (at least not in the tech sense), but I can't see why the machine would need to know your BMI and then rate you accordingly in order to work. Rather than a warning, parents should be allowed to disable the feature. I don't think this will give anyone an eating disorder. But it can be one more step on the way to anorexia or bulimia. And I do see MUCH potential for it to be abused by a young person with an eating disorder.

So unless Nintendo starts sending the Wii-Fit to medical school (and it can start writing refills for some of my meds, which would be mighty convenient), it shouldn't tell me whether I'm fit or fat. That's just Wii-diculous.

*Yes, this dates me. Horribly. But, damn- wasn't Frogger great?
**Isn't that silly thing supposed to know you aren't supposed to ask a lady her age? Methinks Nintendo doth protest too much...