Nintendo Wii: Wii Fit Doesn’t Help Fitness Levels?

A new study conducted by the University of Mississippi has concluded that three months of Wii Fit use produced no significant changes in daily physical activity, muscular fitness, flexibility, balance or body composition for families as a whole.

During the six-month research, University of Mississippi team followed eight families in the Oxford area who were loaned a Nintendo Wii Fit to use for three months.

The study was broken into two parts so that each family’s physical activity was charted during three months without a Nintendo Wii Fit in the home and three months with the game system in the home.

Each family was evaluated through a number of different fitness measurements, including aerobic fitness, balance and body composition.

Lead researcher Scott Owens, UM associate professor of health and exercise science, found that three months of home Wii Fit use produced no significant changes in daily physical activity, muscular fitness, flexibility, balance or body composition for families as a whole.

In addition, daily Wii Fit use per household declined by 82 percent, from 22 minute per day during the first six weeks to four minutes per day during the second six weeks.

Owens concluded that the Wii Fit had little impact on daily fitness and that that “modest amounts of daily Wii Fit use may have provided insufficient stimulus for fitness changes.”

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