Walking and Health

My 11 year old daughter went to a slumber party down her friend’s house in celebration of her friend’s 11th birthday.  She came home the next day and wanted to talk to me about an incident that had happened that evening.  I must have had a horrified look on my face, because she said, “Nothing bad happened to me, but something sad happened to me.”  My face must have shown the relief, but my thoughts turned to confusion. 

As it turned out, her friend got the Wii Fit as a gift from her parents and right away they opened it and wanted to get started.  My daughter was third or fourth and when she got on the Wii board, the results of the BMI test said she was obese.   Luckily, there were only a few of her best friends there and they didn’t laugh or anything, but the father of her friend did laugh.  I don’t think it was intentional and not meant to embarrass of hurt her feelings, but that’s exactly what happened.  She cried on my shoulder that day, because the Wii told her that she was obese. 

I told her that we need to do something about it.  I told her that the Wii takes an average ideal weight  and based on your weight and height and age, it calculates your BMI.  If you fall in the average numbers, you are listed as average. However, it does consider the higher BMI to be obese.  She does need to lose weight and this was a wake up call that she needed to hear from somebody, or something, other than her mom. 

Since that time, we purchased our own Wii Fit and my daughter excels at several of the activities and loves playing on her own and with the rest of her family.  The Wii Sports has tennis and she is quite good.   I think the combination of a change in her eating habits and an increase in the amount of exercise she does every day will all contribute to a lower BMI.  One day she ‘ll play again at her friends house and it won’t matter who sees her numbers, she’ll feel good about herself knowing that she is on her way to becoming a healthy young lady. 

Tips In Implementing the Wii to Help Youngsters Get Active

• Let them play their favorites over and over if they want.
• Encourage them to stay active at least three times a week for 2o minutes.
• Get the entire family involved, including yourself.
• Set two week or one month goals for everyone with respect to BMI or losing weight and reward them for their efforts even if they didn’t meet their goal, but did make progress.
• Set easy to achieve and realistic goals.
• Encourage them to create new Mii’s for variety.
• Compliment them on completing the activity especially if they unlocked new activities and the time is longer.
• Compliment them on unlocking a new activity.
• If they get bored with the Wii activities, take a break for a few days and then you start up again.  They’ll see you doing it and they will want to do it again.
• Act silly and let yourself be laughed at, especially with the Hula-Hoop.  They’ll see how much fun it is and forget that they are actually exercising.
• Remember to always keep it fun.