richasr:

Of course no one has to admit to themselves they are overweight, the point is, they have bought the game, set it up, stepped on the pad and have suddenly been called fat and if we are to believe what some people say, have gotten upset and/or angry, now that's bordering on stupidity if you clearly are a 'portly' gentleman. It's almost like calling a man dressed head to toe in Manchester United's kit and colours while on his way to Old Trafford amongst a large group of similarly dressed people a 'United fan' and him taking offense and denying it to his grave.

But a person getting on WiiFit isn't trying to become *more* portly, while the person going to Old Trafford is trying to become a bigger Man U supporter.

The analogy doesn't fit at all. It's more like Man U paying the transfer fee for someone from France or Spain, and then calling him a dirty foreigner when he shows up for his fitness test.

Cheeze_Pavilion:

GenericWit:

Cheeze_Pavilion:

GenericWit:
Though... I don't know what kind of kids are into playing Wii for exercise when they could be outside... you know... running around. Not that I'm implying anything here (cough cough).

The kind of kids that are conditioned to play video games and not to run around outside. Which...makes a lot of sense, doesn't it? If they were the kind of kid to run around outside, well, they wouldn't need WiiFit in the first place, right?

Conditioned to play video games? Does that entail long hours of weightlifting with a weighted down controller?

I was speaking of 'conditioned' as being 'psychologically conditioned in the sense of being more likely to engage in the activity' not 'physically conditioned to engage in the activity without becoming rapidly fatigued'.

Then your original reply doesn't really fit with mine because I was talking about physical exercise, not being psychologically conditioned. I haven't heard of people losing weight just by being ready to.

A Username Not In Use:

marfoir(IRL):

Skrapt:
I think it was wrong to laugh, but people really do complain and nitpick over every little thing now a days...

Dont worry, I laughed too.
Oh, and someone who is "devastated" from being called fat by a game is clearly insecure.

Insecure. You clearly are one of those little shits that dispences the insults but have never been on the reciving end. For eleven years at school I was insulted primerally for my weight which got worse as I would eat for comfort, which meant I got bigger and th insults became more frequent, not just from students, but some of my teachers and even total strangers in the street. I'm twenty six now and I am only just starting to come to terms which what I went through during that time, and thanks to coucilling sessions and some pill enduced happiness I have stopped comfort eating, and as a result my weight is dropping rapidly, but I am shocked at just how badly damaged I became emotionally, and physically, because of my "insecurity".

The problem is you people don't think about how much damage name calling can do to a person and the fact some of you found this funny fills me with discust.

Too bad your sense of humor isn't as big as your ass!

Frosk:

Cheeze_Pavilion:
What exactly were you saying then? I must have misunderstood your post.

Earlier in the thread someone used an example of racism being like iunsulting some for their weight.

Racism is completely different because it is something that the offended party can't be changed. But, something like weight or hair (per my example) can be changed. I never said that insulting someone because of these was okay. I just offered a better example to relate to the weight issue than racism.

I believe 'User name not in use' asked for a better example than racism.

Ahh, okay. I did misunderstand you, and thought you were arguing the opposite of what you were. I think the *best* example is religion--it's something that people put on the level of race as far as insulting people over it, but it's something that obviously can be easily changed.

GenericWit:

Cheeze_Pavilion:

GenericWit:

Cheeze_Pavilion:

GenericWit:
Though... I don't know what kind of kids are into playing Wii for exercise when they could be outside... you know... running around. Not that I'm implying anything here (cough cough).

The kind of kids that are conditioned to play video games and not to run around outside. Which...makes a lot of sense, doesn't it? If they were the kind of kid to run around outside, well, they wouldn't need WiiFit in the first place, right?

Conditioned to play video games? Does that entail long hours of weightlifting with a weighted down controller?

I was speaking of 'conditioned' as being 'psychologically conditioned in the sense of being more likely to engage in the activity' not 'physically conditioned to engage in the activity without becoming rapidly fatigued'.

Then your original reply doesn't really fit with mine because I was talking about physical exercise, not being psychologically conditioned. I haven't heard of people losing weight just by being ready to.

Actually your original comment was talking about being psychologically conditioned--what else can the question: "I don't know what kind of kids are into playing Wii for exercise when they could be outside... you know... running around." be referring to?

EDIT:

I haven't heard of people losing weight just by being ready to.

Neither have I; however, have you ever heard of someone losing weight that *wasn't* ready to?

In other words, although it may not be a *sufficient* step, it may be a *necessary* step.

Methonias:

A Username Not In Use:

marfoir(IRL):

Skrapt:
I think it was wrong to laugh, but people really do complain and nitpick over every little thing now a days...

Dont worry, I laughed too.
Oh, and someone who is "devastated" from being called fat by a game is clearly insecure.

Insecure. You clearly are one of those little shits that dispences the insults but have never been on the reciving end. For eleven years at school I was insulted primerally for my weight which got worse as I would eat for comfort, which meant I got bigger and th insults became more frequent, not just from students, but some of my teachers and even total strangers in the street. I'm twenty six now and I am only just starting to come to terms which what I went through during that time, and thanks to coucilling sessions and some pill enduced happiness I have stopped comfort eating, and as a result my weight is dropping rapidly, but I am shocked at just how badly damaged I became emotionally, and physically, because of my "insecurity".

The problem is you people don't think about how much damage name calling can do to a person and the fact some of you found this funny fills me with discust.

Too bad your sense of humor isn't as big as your ass!

Hardly original, and I have a very good sence of humour, but it may be a bit too advanced for you as its not centred on taking cheap shots at other peoples expence.

A Username Not In Use:

Methonias:

Too bad your sense of humor isn't as big as your ass!

Hardly original, and I have a very good sence of humour, but it may be a bit too advanced for you as its not centred on taking cheap shots at other peoples expence.

Yeah--maybe next we'll have to deal with such inventive responses as 'whoever smelt it dealt it'

The moral of this story...

If you want to keep fit, keep your own regiment and goals... don't rely on a computer program to do it for you.

Lvl 64 Klutz:
The moral of this story...

If you want to keep fit, keep your own regiment and goals... don't rely on a computer program to do it for you.

I thought that was the moral of the story in _Rocky IV_?

A Username Not In Use:

Insecure. You clearly are one of those little shits that dispences the insults but have never been on the reciving end. For eleven years at school I was insulted primerally for my weight which got worse as I would eat for comfort, which meant I got bigger and th insults became more frequent, not just from students, but some of my teachers and even total strangers in the street. I'm twenty six now and I am only just starting to come to terms which what I went through during that time, and thanks to coucilling sessions and some pill enduced happiness I have stopped comfort eating, and as a result my weight is dropping rapidly, but I am shocked at just how badly damaged I became emotionally, and physically, because of my "insecurity".

The problem is you people don't think about how much damage name calling can do to a person and the fact some of you found this funny fills me with discust.

I am overweight. I'm only too quick to admit that. I actually don't call myself 'overweight.' I call myself 'fat' because the latter is a somewhat harsher word to use to describe a person who weighs more than they should or want to. You and I are (or maybe were, in your case) fat, and the first person to take offense to this is not going to get a consolation hug from me.

I was always fat, and you can bet your ass I was teased and bullied about that at school, by relatives, and by friends, at times. Did it sting and hurt? At first, sure. It taught me a more valuable lesson, though, that self-esteem has the word 'self' in it. I stopped allowing myself to be hurt by petty insults or pokes because they don't matter. What matters is that in the end I value myself and love myself.

I never took pills or took a counseling session to get thin. I work out and I eat well in order to get thin, and I do so at a slow, personally comfortable pace because it is of my own accord.

The point I'm dancing around is that if someone has offended you, it is because you _let_ them offend you. No one forces you to value what they say or take them seriously. You choose to, and whether or not you do so consciously is irrelevant to this point. I must say that what you've experienced sounds harsher than what I went through, but I can assure you that for other reasons I received further abuse, and was at one point at the cusp of suicide due to the way other people 'made me' feel. Obviously and victoriously I survived, however, and the lesson I learned is that what I survived wasn't the insults and the abuse, but my hatred of myself. I learned that by hitting back and blaming others I am only weakening myself by not taking responsibility for my self-esteem. If my love of myself depends on others' love of myself, then I will forever be dependent on others to be happy. This hardly seems like a good life to lead.

As long as you keep calling those people 'little shits' and letting yourself be offended, you will never have any power, and I can bet that you will understand this many times in the future as you let yourself be offended over and over again. You will be a reactionary, and your behavior will be dominated by the way others treat you. Your emotional health will be damaged and you will never heal unless you learn how to take the sharpest insult without missing a beat.

---

And about those families, my point applies to them that if they're so offended by a video game, they should merely stop playing it, and the children, given their youth and emotional vulnerability, should be taught how to dismiss such verbal offenses. I'm not criticizing their being hurt- no one is invulnerable. I'm criticizing their choice to complain instead of act on their own. If someone uses the 'but they're just little kids' argument, I will respond that we are all little kids as long as we let others have that kind of power over us. Maturity comes with valuing oneself and one's life independently.

If those kids were crying, it's not Nintendo's fault, because there will always come a time when someone will say something that will anger or hurt you. The sooner you learn to deal with it and take responsibility for your emotional reactions the better off you will be.

Those families and anyone who complains about this type of bullshit is a pathetic maggot. If I have offended you by this then I am genuinely sorry, but I cannot apologize.

[quote=KikosemmekI never took pills or took a counseling session to get thin. I work out and I eat well in order to get thin, and I do so at a slow, personally comfortable pace because it is of my own accord.[/quote]

The coucilling and the pills was not to get thin, it was for deppression which me an my theripist traced to the resentment that I still fell towards my time at school, the losing weight can about after I realised that I was eating to make myself feel better which I now no longer do, and as I am an active person it is dropping at a steady pace, it might drop quicker if I increase my activities a bit more.

I cannot understand the letting them insult me statement, maybe I did, but after eleven staight years of it, emotionally I was so broken that I just sat there and took it as I could not do anything else.

I have started to come to terms with my childhood, and while I am beginning to acsept what had happened.

Kikosemmek:

And about those families, my point applies to them that if they're so offended by a video game, they should merely stop playing it, and the children, given their youth and emotional vulnerability, should be taught how to dismiss such verbal offenses. I'm not criticizing their being hurt- no one is invulnerable. I'm criticizing their choice to complain instead of act on their own.

That's a false dilemma though. It's perfectly possible to act on one's own AND to complain. I don't see why just because we can rise above what offends us that means we can't speak out against it.

Just because I *can* rise above someone who wrongly offends me doesn't mean I am under any obligation to allow them to continue to wrongly offend me. Why should I have to deal with their behavior just because I can? Maybe you are not capable of "hitting back and blaming others" AND "taking responsibility" for your self-esteem, but, that doesn't mean *none* of us can.

In fact, I think for most of us it's a lot easier to realize we're in control of our own self-esteem by recognizing that we did *nothing* wrong and wherever the 'fault' may lie, all the 'blame' lies with the dicks of the world.

It's a powerful concept I don't think enough people recognize: the distinction between being the 'cause' of something in a purely logical/chain-of-events sense, and being the 'cause' of something in the sense of having done something blameworthy.

People with low self esteem need to realize that no matter how much they may be the 'cause' in the former sense, it is only the dicks of the world who are the 'cause' in the latter sense.

And I think that's the most powerful lesson of all--realizing that even if you can change your future, that doesn't mean that what happened in your past was your fault.

If Doctor Nintendo says it, it must be true then.

Somehow, you can be sure this will be ammo about how kids can't distance themselves from games enough.

I think this game didn't get enough localization. Obviously the bars have to be set differently, depending on people's average weight. Had it been adapted to the american market, that little girl would have not suffered that much.

*Claps*

Nice, Kikosemic.

Arbre:
I think this game didn't get enough localization. Obviously the bars have to be set differently, depending on people's average weight. Had it been adapted to the american market, that little girl would have not suffered that much.

All our fit are belong to them?

Arbre:

I think this game didn't get enough localization. Obviously the bars have to be set differently, depending on people's average weight. Had it been adapted to the american market, that little girl would have not suffered that much.

The levels should be something like:

Boot Camp
Veteran
Special Forces
00-class Agent
THIS IS SPARTA!!!

Cheeze_Pavilion:

Arbre:

I think this game didn't get enough localization. Obviously the bars have to be set differently, depending on people's average weight. Had it been adapted to the american market, that little girl would have not suffered that much.

The levels should be something like:

Boot Camp
Veteran
Special Forces
00-class Agent
THIS IS SPARTA!!!

I wouldn't want to be a 00-class agent as with the exception of number 7 every other 00-agent does not live very long

Wow, and here I thought this was going to be another mutual 'Jack Thompson' incident we could all have a laugh over, but there's some nicely deep stuff here about modern instances of prejudice and how to overcome them.

That being said, I don't believe Nintendo has any reason to apologize for 'insults' in a game, especially unintentional ones in a physical examination. Guitar Hero has style rankings from 'YOU ROCK' to 'YOU SUCK' and the latter hasn't caused a lawsuit for gross mental anguish... Yet. I can't even COUNT the number of games that gleefully insult it's players in one case or another. Wii Fit isn't even doing that- it simply listing a score based on weight measurements, just like a scale in a doctor's office. If that scale's needle pops out of the glass casing a la Garfield, do you sue the doctor? The manufacturers?

They're probably sending another lawsuit to MacDonald's or whatever that store is that they're in. For making them fat.

Personal accountability, how I miss thee.

Why the hell would a parent depend on a video game to get their kid fit? It's called "Go outside and play you little shits!" Go to the park and play on the monkey bars or something.

A Username Not In Use:

marfoir(IRL):

Skrapt:
I think it was wrong to laugh, but people really do complain and nitpick over every little thing now a days...

Dont worry, I laughed too.
Oh, and someone who is "devastated" from being called fat by a game is clearly insecure.

Insecure. You clearly are one of those little shits that dispences the insults but have never been on the reciving end. For eleven years at school I was insulted primerally for my weight which got worse as I would eat for comfort, which meant I got bigger and th insults became more frequent, not just from students, but some of my teachers and even total strangers in the street. I'm twenty six now and I am only just starting to come to terms which what I went through during that time, and thanks to coucilling sessions and some pill enduced happiness I have stopped comfort eating, and as a result my weight is dropping rapidly, but I am shocked at just how badly damaged I became emotionally, and physically, because of my "insecurity".

The problem is you people don't think about how much damage name calling can do to a person and the fact some of you found this funny fills me with discust.

And yet, if you had been proactive sooner, the motivation for most to tease you would've been gone sooner. Perhaps it is wrong that they teased you, but all along you had the power to change that, and you chose not to use it, and you cannot blame others for that.

And please don't insist I don't know what it's like - I know only too well myself. Kinda happens when you're a) intelligent, b) well off, and c) the new person in a hicksville town. The key difference is I was also constantly called gay.

soul_rune1984:
Why the hell would a parent depend on a video game to get their kid fit? It's called "Go outside and play you little shits!" Go to the park and play on the monkey bars or something.

For the same reason they have monkey bars--it's fun. That's how you get kids fit--mentally or physically--you get them to do something of their own accord because it's fun.

Monkey bars...just don't work anymore, for whatever reason.

WhiteFangofWar:
Wii Fit isn't even doing that- it simply listing a score based on weight measurements, just like a scale in a doctor's office.

Based on the article, that's exactly *not* what it was doing. Not only that, but the criticism was that making conclusions based on BMI measures is not valid for children. It's more like the equipment in the doctor's office diagnosing you with a disease you don't actually have.

Literacy, how I miss thee more...

BlueMage:

And yet, if you had been proactive sooner, the motivation for most to tease you would've been gone sooner. Perhaps it is wrong that they teased you, but all along you had the power to change that, and you chose not to use it, and you cannot blame others for that.

Umm, yes--yes you can. If someone starts hitting me with a bat and I say 'no' but don't move, that doesn't give them the right to keep hitting me with a bat, does it? Now not only do we have to retreat before the dicks of the world if we can before using force against them, but if we don't retreat what they are doing becomes acceptable?

You're blaming the victim here.

Even games like Wii Fit take a beating from The Mail? Jesus. Anyway, someone's lying , 4"9 and 6 stone is underweight.

COD4 recently called me a "camper," and I really do not enjoy outdoor activities. Anyone care to join me in a class action suit?

There is a big difference between User... being called fat and Wii Fit calling this girl fat, namely, intent.

To insult someone, you must have the intent of insulting them, act on this intent, and then the second party must be insulted. User...'s classmates/teacher were trying to insult him when they called him fat--their intent was to offend. That's not the case for Nintendo, clearly. Wii Fit is simply a tool made by Nintendo. If their explicit intent wasn't to insult the user, they can't be responsible for any offense taken. You can't fault the first party for the interpretation, or misinterpretation in this case, of the second party. If there was no intent for Nintendo to insult, then no insult was delivered, thus no insult should be received.

User... himself used the phrase "filthy n****r"--something that many people, even in the context that it was used in, would find offensive. Was he trying to offend people with this phrase? Or was he using [traditionally] inflammatory language to prove a point? In his context, I don't think he was being offensive, regardless of how someone else would take it--same thing with Wii Fit using the word "fat." If the intent isn't to insult, there was no insult.

Language must be looked at with intent--just like any other action. Look at the legal system--Murder, manslaughter, self defense--all three ways of killing someone--same outcome for the 'victim' but the intent of the defendant is different in all three. You might disagree with this but that's how the world is working these days. Wrong isn't judged based on the outcome or even the action itself, but the intent of the person doing the action.

Unless there is proof that Nintendo's intent was to insult someone, they've done no wrong.

I fail to see the huge controversy here...

WiiFit told kids that they were fat. Because it is a health and wellness game, the young and inexperienced child thought it must be accurate. Everyone trusts authority on some level, because the world is too big to know everything about it, so a healthy kid being told hes fat by a machine (Not a bully whose trying to be mean, but a machine that a kid can assume is just being objective)really sucks. Parents complain that there healthy kid shouldn't be told there fat. They get enough of that through role models. Nintendo realizes that there product is misleading in an unexpected way. Mistakes happen, they apologize for the screw up. The End.

Wheres the controversy? It was an honest mistake, could happen to anyone, the kids now know that they aren't fat, and everyone learns a little more about BMI. A few kids happened to hit one of the many, MANY rough patches of childhood over a game, Nintendo manned up and admitted they weren't perfect.

And yes, kids are getting fatter, its a problem, it shouldn't be funny and needs to be taken seriously, but it evokes a few giggles of schadenfreude that some people are more willing to accept as part of themselves, and that others are better at denying out of a sense of etiquette and tact. Regardless, its a problem that won't be solved in a simple sentence-long answer, nor will it be helped or harmed by anything connected with this article.

There plenty of mountains out there already without making molehills into them as well.

You can't change being born black, white, gay (despite what the Evangelicals say), Jewish, albino, or a midget.

You can change being fat and running up healthcare costs, while grossing people out and slurping down excess amounts of food while people starve in the world, then bitching about your problems and growing a massive out-of-control, weepy, histrionic, attention-whore victim complex, comparing your detractors to Nazis (the inevitable way the delusional, persecution-complex set always does) and avoiding an ounce of personal responsibility for your own life by falsifying statistics (less than 1% of morbidly obese Americans suffer from ANY kind of glandular or genetic disorder). Of course it takes work, just like EVERYTHING ELSE, diet and exercise aren't easy, but McDonalds tastes like shit, and really, it's insulting, disgustingly selfish, demeaning, alienating and infuriating to the aforementioned minorities to try to lump yourself in with them because you want sympathy/attention.

Full stop.

Cheeze_Pavilion:

How does insulting bigots make one a bigot? That's like saying 'killing an armed soldier who is killing unarmed civilians makes you a killer of unarmed civilians'. It just doesn't make sense.

Of course it does, killing a murderer, makes you a murderer, regardless of whether it was right or wrong. And insulting someone for being a Bigot makes you a bigot, a bigot with good intentions but a bigot nonetheless. Though as I said before everyone is a biggot to an extent.