Five schools in the central English region of Worcestershire have been trialling the use of the popular Nintendo Wii console to encourage students to participate in physical activities, the Daily Mail reported.
(but I picked this up from news.com.au and now find that it was also reported in yesterday’s Independant and on BBC – BBC also report that students in Luton are doing computer dance classes as alternatives to traditional exercise)
They also report that “Studies have shown that playing Wii games is not a substitute for real exercise.” But we know that LocoMatrix is and indeed as I write the critics are coming out and attacking the report – phew, I’ve burnt off a few calories just keeping up-to-date.
Googling around, obesity seems to be the flavour of the day, a new report by Oxford Analytica is reported in Forbes (the Oxford report in full is here – but you need to register before you can view it).
“Because obesity is regarded widely as a personal issue, public demand for significant governmental intervention is relatively weak. However, the Foresight report argues that complexity and inter-relationships of the obesity system make a compelling case for the futility of isolated initiatives. Nonetheless, achieving changes to activity- and food-related environments will be difficult, resource-intensive and time-consuming”.
And of course this follows last week’s £372m cross-departmental strategy from the government designed to cut levels of obesity in England.