The Wii Fit sets out to help adults and children alike stay fit, lose weight and have fun in the process; however it’s come in for some criticism of late for branding children obese when they’re perfectly healthy.

Obesity experts have complained that by branded perfectly healthy children as obese, the console could be leading children towards eating disorders.

When players use the Wii Fit, the console assesses each player’s fitness level and labels them depending on their body mass index. The body mass index (BMI) is a method for measuring someone’s weight, in relation to their height. The trouble is that the Wii Fit, on the Nintendo Wii, doesn’t take into consideration a child’s age. Therefore it’s branded children obese when there’s really nothing wrong with them.

Nintendo freely admit that the BMO calculations used on the Wii Fit were based on adults, so results for children wouldn’t be accurate.

Shirley Alexander is a specialist in children’s weight at Westmead Children’s Hospital:

Anyone that’s even overweight can actually be fit, [although] the more overweight you are the less likely you are to be fit.

But with children they have more fatty tissue at different periods of their life and they have a larger body surface area relative to adults. The BMI is still worked out on height and weight but the age of the child has got to be taken into account.