I told you in an earlier post that my mother gave our kids a Wii Fit for Christmas. 

If you’re unfamiliar with the program I’ll try to explain.  The Wii Fit is an interactive program that offers a wide range of physical fitness activities to participate in.  The benefit of the Wii is that you can do all of these activities from the safety and comfort of your own home- no need to travel to the slopes, the gym, or the court.  Unlike other Wii games, the Fit actually requires you to perform no-kidding exercises such as yoga, Pilate’s, hula-hooping, skiing etcetera.  Your efforts are monitored by the use of the hand controller and an electronic fitness platform.

When you begin the Fit program you’re asked to create your very own character- known as a Mii.  The MII represents you in the cyber fitness universe.  This is a pretty sophisticated program so you can personalize your Mii to look just like you- from hair and eye color all the way to those bushy old-man eyebrows you start to sprout when you cross the magical “over 40″ boundary- my eyebrows are still legit, I’m only 38.

Once your Mii is created the system starts to collect data points.  It ask you to step on the board and enter your age, height and birth date.  It calculates your weight automatically so no need to waste your time making shit up- the damn thing is pretty friggin accurate too.  Once it gets your vitals it asks you to perform some simple balance drills and from this it determines your Wii Fit age. 

Ahhh, your Wii Fit age.  I am sure that in the short time that Wii Fit has been available this number has created an amazing amount of controversy.  Supposedly the Wii is smart enough to  take your data points (age, weight, height) and then match them to the results of your balance test and determine how old you are in fitness years.  For instance a 30 year old man who exercises regularly and is fit and trim should expect to have a Wii Fit age less than his actually age- lets say 25.  This is logical right? 

When your fitness age is announced it’s kind of a big deal.  In our home all activity comes to a screeching halt so that every family member can marvel at your level of fitness or laugh at how out of shape you actually are.  The process begins with a no-kidding drum roll and your Mii saying “Now announcing your Wii Fit Age”.  Then with all of the pomp and circumstance of the Grammy Awards your Wii Fit Age pops onto the screen in huge bold numbers followed by either cheers or a gasp- no joke, the Wii mocks you with a gasping crowd if it has determined that you’re out of shape. 

It gets even better- if your Wii has decided that you’re overweight your Mii morphs to coincide with its assessment i.e. he plumps up right before your very eyes.  I know this because I was categorized as borderline morbidly obese- my Mii went from Brad Pitt to a meat ball with legs in a split second.  To add insult to injury every time I get on the fitness platform it makes an ugly grunting sound as if the burden of supporting my weight is to much to bear- the first time I got on after my fitness age was announced I think it actually muttered “Holy Shit- the fat guy’s back”.  Nice language Wii, do you kiss your motherboard with that mouth? 

Smart Alleck Wii Platform

I no longer like the Wii Fit.  I’ve worked out every day for the past 20 years and to have this smart ass little machine tell me I’m a rotund bag of goo just about put me through the roof.  Oh and by the way, my fitness age is almost 50- good God, and here I thought I was in pretty decent shape.  I wish someone would have told me how out of shape I was before I ran that last marathon I would have trained a little differently.  That’s right, you heard me Mr. Wii- Tubby ran a marathon, two in fact.  Now apologize or I’ll let Cayden play with you unsupervised. 

Not only did the Wii call me fat- but fortunate for me it did so in front of my entire family.  The boys were pretty silent when the announcement was made- however, they did walk over and solemnly stroke the console like they would soon be saying good bye to an old friend.  Connie was not so gracious.  She started to laugh the second my Mii inflated to beach ball sized proportions.  She laughed harder when it announced I would soon be eligible for social security benefits.  And she nearly wet herself when I immediately started to argue with my Mii, about who was and was not in good shape.  The Wii didn’t care if I was angry or not it continued to mock me.  When I stepped off the fitness platform it said “Ahhhhh, thank you for removing your fat ass from my spine, please come again when your weight is proportionate to your height and will no longer produce undue strain to the operating system, have a pleasant day.” 

I sure would like to meet the gaming engineer who gave my Wii such a sarcastic sense of humor. I would probably make the suggestion that they cultivate a stronger desire for self preservation and maybe leave the cutting wit for a more robust piece of machinery.