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Wii not the way to lose weight

If you’re serious about getting fit then the Wii’s sports games will get you partly there, but they’re no substitute for traditional exercise, according to a group of Canadian students. Duh.

The 28-strong band of testers from Dalhousie University in the East Coast city of Halifax, Nova Scotia each played the console’s Wii Sports boxing game for 30 minutes. They also walked around a park and worked out to a boxing video for 30 minutes each, as a comparison exercise. Whoever said students were lazy..?

Each student’s heart rate was measured during the three activities and although the Wii game got players moving and off the couch, it failed to pass the mark as a cardiovascular exercise. Of all three tests, the students found that the boxing video was the best fat burner, followed by the Wii game. A walk in the park was the least energetic.

Perhaps a good session on the upcoming Wii Fit game, which has already sold 1m copies in Japan, will get your heart racing more though, because its central theme is exercise. ®

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