After teeming up with the UK NHS's Change4Life health education project last year, they have now teamed up with the American Heart Association (and apparently given them a significant donation) to promote physical activity at home with Wii Fit.

While I'm always a little cynical about these sorts of corporate tie-ups, anything that helps promote the idea that you don't have to got to the gym or start a punishing running regime to improve your fitness is a good thing.

As the AHA website says...



For far too long the fitness message has been about doing things "properly", mostly by giving lots of money to sports clubs, gyms, and personal trainers. It's been about punishing workouts and strict diets. But this sends out the wrong message, that losing weight and getting fitter have to be boring, hard, and unpleasant. Medics and the health world, including charities like the AHA and organisations like the NHS, seem to be finally coming over to the idea that if you really want people to feel like they can do something positive you've got to convinces them that it's not that hard and can be fun.

Wii Fit and other exercise games will not magically make you fit and trim, but for so many people who live an otherwise sedentary life they can be an excellent first step in getting more active, and by being fun, convenient and (relatively) cheap there are many fewer excuses for not doing something.

That's a good point. There certainly seems to be a great deal of puritanism in some parts of the fitness world, as it were. Before Wii Fit came along, the only way I could entertain myself whilst exercising was to watch a film while I pedalled my exercise bike. Wii Fit is much more fun than that.

Another good point you make is that it is relatively cheap. It certainly beats one of those rip-off gym memberships and you can exercise in the privacy of your own home. When I used to go to the gym, I was often frustrated when I had to wait for people to get through using certain popular equipment such as the treadmills and the bikes. Then there was the sweat they left behind. One guy, I recall used to sweat rivers when he was on the bike. What's worse was, although he knew he left everything sweaty, what he would do was wrap paper towels around the handles to absorb the sweat, which would have been fine, but he would always forget to take them off at the end of his session, leaving anyone following him to remove the soaking paper.