As everyone knows by now, the idea of Wii Fit is to give people an excuse to exercise under the guise of a game. Wii Fit includes mini-games like ball rolling and skiing as well as fitness tests like strength training and yoga exercises. It even has a variety of charts to track your progress and encourage you to keep at it every day. The point of these charts is to show you how using—or not using—Wii Fit on a regular basis will affect the fitness progress is being made.

Wii Fit measures your body mass index and your weight every time you start playing the game. Over time, any gains you make in lowering your BMI will be visually obvious on the progress tracker. Even small gains from day to day will show up, which can encourage people to keep at it.

Nintendo of America's Bill Trinen, who had been using Wii Fit regularly, demonstrated what happens when someone stops using Wii Fit for an extended period of time. For someone as high up on the Nintendo food chain as Trinen, a busy schedule is a given, so there were stretches of time when he simply didn't have the opportunity to use Wii Fit. The BMI tracking chart reflected this. Before a large gap of inactivity in the chart, Trinen's BMI had been decreasing slowly. However, the first time he went back to measure himself after returning to the game, his BMI measurement shot up slightly. Outside circumstances aside, the chart made it pretty black and white: physical inactivity leads to weight gain.

Wii Fit isn't something that's only going to be a fun way to exercise. Based on what Trinen said about his personal experiences with it, it also looks like something that can help you stick to an exercise plan, even if Wii Fit is the only exercise you'll be getting. No one likes to see themselves gain weight, but the problem is that most of the time people don't notice it happening to themselves until it's already happened. With Wii Fit, the BMI and weight tracker charts can help show people that progress is being made toward a goal weight that they can set for themselves. If the chart starts to consistently move upwards, that may be an early warning sign that not enough is being done to maintain a current weight.

Wii Fit could be a lot more than just something you move your body to. Based on Trinen's account and presentation at the media summit, Wii Fit is looking more and more like a useful tool for staying fit and keeping healthy.