When video game cre­ators offered their prod­ucts to the mass­es, they prob­a­bly did­n’t antic­i­pate the pro­found­ly neg­a­tive effect on phys­i­cal activ­i­ty lev­els in the US. Tele­vi­sion, com­put­ers, and video games give us plen­ty of rea­sons to plant our­selves in front of a screen for pro­longed peri­ods rather than, say, take a walk. So I chuck­led when I read two recent news sto­ries about the Wii, one in the on-line ver­sion of our local paper, LoHud.com , and the oth­er in a British media site, The Inde­pen­dent. The Wii is becom­ing a huge hit in nurs­ing homes and as a rehab tool for old­er adults. And British stu­dents who used the Wii dur­ing their lunch break improved their fit­ness lev­el. Who knew that if we had a video plat­form like the Wii that encour­ages activ­i­ty, we might be more moti­vat­ed to move? Christ­mas and Chanukah are only 11 months away!

[ Pho­to cred­it: Fanboy30 via Flickr ]