About a month ago, my supervisor at the pediatric clinic where I volunteer told me that a Wii system had been donated to the clinic. My first thought was that there would be fights over it in the waiting room and that no one would want to play at the art table again. On the other hand, some of the kids clearly need to get up and move around more. I had heard about nursing homes and rehabilitation centers that used Wii games to get people to engage in low-impact exercise and improve their coordination.
The Wii arrived last week and was just approved for electrical safety. It's housed in a rolling unit with a TV and preloaded with about 15 games. Apparently these units are specially made by Nintendo and the Starlight Foundation for hospitals and clinics. After figuring out how it worked in the break room, I took it into the waiting room.
When there weren't any patients in the waiting room, I tried Wii Sports. Despite P.E. being one of my least favorite classes in school, and not being a fan of sports games, I really enjoyed it. Boxing was the only sport on it that I would recommend for intense exercise, but for a lot of people I think pretend tennis and bowling would be a positive step forward in terms of physical activity. The ability to play pretend sports with friends is also a major advantage over the at-home fitness innovation of the late 80s, the exercise tape, in which the people you follow may be intimidating in how fit they are or, in the case of Carmen Electra*, their apparent ability to exercise without messing up their hair.
* = Yes, she makes exercise videos. Last year my hall had an exercise event and used one of her videos. While we were working out we couldn't stop talking about how ridiculous we looked compared to her.
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