As part of a media campaign to celebrate the release of the sequel to their popular Wii Sports game, Nintendo announced on Thursday they would be touring around the country with a portable island straight out of Wii Sports Resort.
Starting with a huge display in the middle of Times Square, the portable islands will have plenty of fruity (but non-alcoholic beverages), a steel drum band, a reflecting pool and a lounge area. Oh, yeah…You’ll also be able to try out Wii Sports Resort!
With all the talk coming out of Washington these days about health care, and specifically the impact that obesity has an our rising health care costs as a nation, it is not difficult to imagine a time when our elected officials may see fit to try and regulate our waist lines. We’ve written here about several incidents where the government has seemed to do just that. From taxing sugary soft drinks to removing a morbidly obese child from his Mothers care, several states have taken a very hands-on approach to dealing with obesity. With those kind of precedents being set it is only a matter of time before slippery slope logic dictates we will have some kind of federal intervention into our daily caloric intake.
Contrary to popular belief, though, not everything that comes out of Washington, D.C. is going to be the equivalent of the next $400 hammer. It’s not necessarily a bad thing that the federal government is taking a closer look at what can be done about the obesity epidemic in America, and one doctor has outlined a plan that could really make a significant difference without infringing on our personal freedoms.
Image by Ken Lund
Over the last few months I’ve been taking part in the Weight Watchers® Walk-!t Challenge. The program is a partnership between Weight Watchers and Active.com that encouraged Weight Watchers members to sign up for and complete a 5K walk for charity. As part of the program Weight Watchers provided trainers to those who signed up for the challenge to help prepare them for the 5k. I’ve never taken part in any kind of event like this before, so while I already walk considerably more than 5k on a daily basis I thought it was a great opportunity to get some more exercise in to my routine and I signed up.
I got an email this morning from my trainer that got me thinking. Amusingly enough it wasn’t part of the email itself but her signature that sent the wheels in my head spinning.
Jorge and Samuel are doing it wrong. Image courtesy of hdaniel
Health care is big business. Just ask President Obama. Even with our twenty-four hour news cycle being overrun with updates about the Iranian Elections or the latest round of tragic celebrity deaths, there is still almost daily coverage of the debate in Washington about the future of health care in America. While there is a great deal of conflict over what exactly the cure is for our ailing health care system, it seems as though everyone agrees that something needs to be done to reign in the rate at which health care spending continues to grow. If nothing changes the current estimates indicate that by 2017 health care expenses will top nearly $4.7 trillion dollars (nearly 20 percent of the Gross Domestic Product).
With all of that money floating around in the health care system it should not come as much of a shocker to learn that in the last 18 months exergames have generated nearly $2 Billion dollars in worldwide sales. Despite our ever-expanding waist lines (or perhaps as a direct result of them) video game fans are flocking to fitness related video games like Wii Fit and EA SPORTS Active.
It appears as though the battle for supremacy in the exergame field continues! Not content to sit back and let EA SPORTS Active steal all the thunder when it comes to fitness gaming, Nintendo recently announced an expansion to the popular Wii Fit title during the E3 conference in Los Angeles, California.
The appropriately named Wii Fit Plus is scheduled to be released this Fall in time for the Holiday shopping season. Available as a complete package with the Wii Balance Board or as a stand-alone expansion for those who already own Wii Fit, Wii Fit Plus includes all the exercises of the original game along with 15 new balance games and six new yoga and strength training activities.
Photo by uuzinger
I have never, in my entire life, done a pull-up.
This is not an easy revelation for me to make. The truth of the matter is that it’s downright painful.
Back when I was in Middle School (6th to 8th grades down here in Florida) physical education was a mandatory class that everyone had daily. For some kids it was an excuse to get outside and have some fun during the school day. For me it was a daily reminder of how much I sucked. It was an opportunity for me to get picked on for how slow I was, how much I was sweating in the hot Florida sun, how I was horrible at team sports, and how ugly I looked when I didn’t have my shirt on. The latter, of course, only happened on one of the very rare occasions when I would actually get up the nerve to “dress out.” When I didn’t, which was most of the time, I got picked on instead because of how badly I smelled due to not taking a shower after class.
The absolute worst humiliation I had to endure during that time, however, was a direct result of The President’s Challenge.
Active_Girl just announced over on Twitter that EA SPORTS is giving away a copies of EA SPORTS Active in honor of Father’s Day. She did not provide any links to a rules page so I cannot offer specifics in that regard, but the description of the contest she gave on her Tweet about it was “Father’s day giveaway – kids – why should your dad win a copy. Dad’s – why should you win a copy? email active@ea.com.”
Father’s Day is next Sunday, so hopefully Active_Girl will pick the winners soon and get them shipped out in time for those of us who have waited until the last minute to grab something for Dad.
Update! According to the notice on the EA SPORTS Active Facebook fan page they are giving away five copies.
There has been a considerable amount of innovation that has surfaced over the last few years in the fitness gaming market. From dance pads to balance boards game developers are constantly thinking up new ways to get us moving in order to get healthy while we entertain ourselves. “Exergaming” seems to be one of the next great things in the video game realm and those of us who enjoy the genre eagerly look forward to the next big thing that is going to come down the line.
The folks over at Black Bean Games are hoping they have found the new hotness.
I’ve made it past the first big milestone in the my experiment with the EA SPORTS Active 30 Day Challenge by completing 10 workouts. As a reward I got a new trophy and an “attaboy” video from Bob Green in which he explained that they were going to be increasing the difficulty of my workouts from this point on. I’m much more comfortable with how the program works and I’m learning the proper way to move to maximize the benefit I’m getting from my workouts.
I don’t want to give the impression that I’ve become a total EA SPORTS Active fanboy I thought I’d take some time this week to share my thoughts on ways I think the game could be improved.
One of the things I am having to deal with already in my weight loss effort is loose skin on my inner thighs, lower abdomen, and pelvic regions. I have looked around on Google and gotten a LOT of conflicting information that focused mainly around BMI and lean tissue vs body fat content. I am not sure what to trust short of going to a dermatologist or Cosmetic Surgeon for a consultation and asking, “What do I do?”
– Anonymous Reader
Well, anonymous, let me state right off the bat here that if you want a definitive answer to this question you SHOULD go see a medical professional for a consultation. I’m not a doctor, nor is anyone here at ShrinkGeek, and all of what I’m about to offer is simply a healthy mix of some internet research peppered with my personal opinion. I don’t have the fancy letters after my name to prove that anything you’re about to read is true, nor do I have the malpractice insurance behind me if it turns out I’m completely wrong.
Now that I’ve gotten all those messy disclaimer things out of the way to cover my posterior let me state that I have, indeed, done a bit of research into this subject. I, too, have wrestled with the loose skin question and have often said that I may end up needing to have surgery to remove it as well. I have even gone so far as to have consulted a plastic surgeon about my predicament, and as such I’m happy to pass on what I have learned to you.