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'Wii workout' for overweight pupils plan slammed

Wii shall not be moved

Any students hoping to go for a Wii during lesson time will have to hold it for now. A campaign group claims that a scheme suggested by the UK Department of Health (DoH) to introduce the console into classrooms is simply a gimmick.

The DoH is backing the trial introduction of Wiis into four Worcestershire high schools, in a bid to get kids, who may have otherwise bunked off PE lessons, active and burning off their school dinners.

However, the chairman of the Campaign for Real Education, Nick Seaton, this weekend dismissed the project. “It looks like a gimmick," he told the Press Association. "It’s pandering to the views of the physically idle.”

Seaton said that kids would be better off doing serious competitive sports and games. So he’s clearly never played a heart-pounding tennis set on Wii Sports.

The good news for Seaton is that a recent study among the allegedly laziest people on earth, university students, has found that although the Wii is good for getting people off the sofa and moving around, it’s not the best way of getting a good cardiovascular workout.

Seaton’s comments won't signal the removal of Wiis from the classroom though. A DoH spokesman said that the UK government welcomes the positive impact of innovations like this.

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