Nintendo Wii Fit game which works out players’ body mass index (BMI), and shows if you’re the right weight for your height has generated heat by calling a girl fat.
The girl named Tabea from Lincolnshire UK told her parents she had to diet after the game said she was fat, when she isn’t. She is 11 years old.
Nintendo in a statement admitted that its Wii Fit game is for adults only and may not be suitable for children because it calculates BMI based on adult data.
The body mass index (BMI), or Quetelet index, is a statistical measure of the weight of a person scaled according to height. As such, it is useful as a population measure only, and is not appropriate for diagnosing individuals.
Tabea said:
I was a little sad about it because I really don’t want to be overweight. went home and told my mum and she was really angry because girls my age shouldn’t be worrying about these kind of things.
Her mother reacted angrily by saying:
She doesn’t need to lose weight. She’s slim and tall and she’s got a lot of growing left to do. It’s things like this that could lead to eating disorders.
Nintendo released the following statement on this issue:
Nintendo would like to apologise to any customers offended by the in-game terminology used to classify a player’s current body mass index status. The resulting figures may not be entirely accurate for younger age groups due to varying levels of development.
Tabea’s weight is 6st 11lbs and height just under 5ft and it is a normal weight for her height.
It should be interesting to note that some celebrities like footballers could be classed as obese because they have big muscles and BMI index doesn’t tell the difference between muscle and fat.
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