Where there's a will, there's a wii!

In addition to vending machines and fast food at school, video games have been the scapegoat of childhood obesity. This is intuitive since in general video games require players to sit in front of the screen and compel no physical activity. And too many kids, as the cliche goes, spend hours playing video games.

There's probably some truth in that commonly held perception. However, the Nintendo Wii has changed the way video games are played and may, as a by-product, compel physical activity so strenuous as to help overweight children lose weight.

This was the gist of a recent WSJ article on the Wii entitled "A Wii Workout: When Videogames Hurt".

The new console has been wildly successful, selling out at stores and winning high marks from critics and game buffs. But as players spend more time with the Wii, some are noticing that hours waving the game's controller around can add up to fairly intense exertion -- resulting in aches and pains common in more familiar forms of exercise. They're reporting aching backs, sore shoulders -- even something some have dubbed "Wii elbow."

In one study printed in Pediatrics this past year, Dr. Lorraine Lanningham-Foster and her team found that playing one physical activity oriented video game in particular, "Dance Dance Revolution," helped lean kids burn more calories than spending the same amount of time on a treadmill while watching TV.

So the idea of physical activity oriented video games helping overweight kids lose weight, based on the observations that many kids don't like to get physical activity outside or their parents feel it is unsafe for them to and that kids seem to get involved deeply in video game play, is promising, as is the idea of using video games to give all kids in general a chance to develop physical exercise habits.

I'm currently helping with a project to create a 'wiimnasium' -- an exercise facility of physical activity based video games -- at the local children's hospital. Stay tuned.