Sigh, statistical twaddle from The Telegraph

paul · **Joined:** Sun Oct 05, 2008 4:43 pm **Posts:** 547

An article in The Telegraph from a couple of months ago claims that women playing on the Wii Fit have caused £20million.

It never ceases to amaze me just how much twaddle the media can spin out of a survey, especially when it is a thinly veiled advert (in this case for an insurance company).

Quote:

86 per cent of the 1,000 women polled said they already owned a Wii Fit or were planning to get one soon

So given that the UK population is 60 million, I would say that 15million are in the survey's demographic (of course they don't provide that, why ruin a good statistic with fact) of 20 to 60s. That would mean that some 13 million women are planning to buy a Wii Fit. Given that UK sales of the Wii have only reached 3.6 million so far, this must have Nintendo rubbing their hands (or it could be junk statistic of course.

Quote:

Women polled admitted they had caused an average of £6.55 worth of damage to their homes in the last year with over-enthusiastic work-outs. That figure equates to a national bill of £20.1 million.

a) The Wii Fit has been out for six months, so presumably this just means any form of exercise routine, making the title a shameless grab for google juice.

b) 20.1 million / 6.55 = 3 million. Eh? That's 10 percent of the female population. Where did that even come from? Presumably someone's arse.

Meh, another day, another stupid survey.

On a final note: I would expect damage from Wii Fit usage to actually be less than free workouts (videos and the like) since you are focused on the balance board for 99% of the time. So long as you have enough room around you, you should be ok.

Not to mention the frequent safety warning.