Can a videogame help you lose weight?

As a health writer, I know the awesome benefits of exercise--improving cardiac and lung function, encouraging weight loss, boosting strength and endurance, improving mood and possibly even making you smarter. In theory, that's all terrific. It's the bit about getting to the gym more than twice a week that's the problem. Now Nintendo's new Wii Fit is bringing the gym--or a stripped-down version of it--to me and my Mii (the Wii's onscreen representation of me). At $90--plus $250 for the basic console--Wii Fit is not cheap, but it still costs less than an actual gym membership. And since it's in the middle of my living room, it's harder to ignore. That can only be good news.

Wii Fit follows on the success of the original Wii console, which has been a coveted item since its November 2006 release. Reaching well beyond the teenage-male fan base of the standard videogame, the basic Wii has attracted kids, soccer moms and seniors. Certain rehab centers are using it to help patients recover from strokes, injuries and, in some cases, war wounds. Physical therapists have even come up with a name for this new form of rehab--"Wiihab."

Where the original Wii featured golf, boxing, tennis, baseball and bowling, Wii Fit offers fitness training of four types--aerobics, strength training, yoga and balance games. Most of the exercises are fun, and all of them increase your heart rate or muscle tone while helping develop "core" muscle groups that aid balance and posture

The key to all of this is the Wii Fit balance board that you stand on. It looks like a glorified kitchen cutting board but contains weight-sensitive areas for both feet. The concept came from a Nintendo developer who saw sumo wrestlers on TV weighing themselves with two scales. (Japanese scales go up to only about 300 pounds, so two scales are often necessary.) While trying out the two-scale idea, "developers noticed that keeping the balance between your left and right legs is actually very challenging and fun," says Cammie Dunaway, executive vice president of sales and marketing for Nintendo of America. Developers recruited Kaoru Matsui, a Japanese trainer, who was already using balance concepts, to advise them on specific exercises.

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