Wii Fit to pre-teen: You're fat

In a world of glossy magazines showing us rail thin models who subsist on a diet of lettuce and vodka, do we really need video games telling impressionable young children that they're fat?

Nintendo is being lambasted over its hot new Wii Fit "balance board," which has labeled a 10-year-old-girl as "fat" according to its expert analysis. The UK girl, reportedly 4 feet, 9 inches tall, weighs six stone, or about 84 pounds, according to her stepfather. If those figures are true, that would give her a Body Mass Index of a mere 18.2, which actually falls into the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute's "underweight" category (though I suspect the real figures are a little different). The worry isn't that she's unhealthy but rather that the device has given her an incorrect and damaging opinion of her health and self-image, one that her parents will now have to work double-time to correct.

At least one group, the UK's National Obesity Forum, is calling for the game to be banned from being marketed to children, saying that BMI "should simply not be used" for growing kids whose bodies are rapidly changing from day to day.

Nintendo has apologized, mainly for using the term "fat" in the game, but says it stands by the BMI measurement, saying only that it "may not be entirely accurate for younger age groups." The company says it will not add a warning of any kind to the device, however. Presumably, it's not going to come up with another word for "fat," either.

POLL: What should Nintendo do?