“Fitness-oriented video games are also being used more and more in nursing homes for rehabilitation,” she added. “My daughter is 12 and she has a friend who is very inactive and overweight and has some body control issues and the Wii Fit has really been a good thing for her… This is a child who would rather eat than anything and it’s the first time I have ever seen her say, ‘I’m not coming to dinner, I’m playing the Wii.”‘

“And anyone can play these games… I am illiterate as far as video games but these are games that anyone can have success with. My daughter absolutely hates the fact that I am better at this one balance game than she is,” she said.

“This has and is absolutely 100 per cent nothing to do with Nintendo,” a spokesman said.

“Nintendo did not create it and were not aware of it until it was brought it to our attention.”

“She is a perfectly healthy, 4ft 9in tall 10-year-old who swims, dances and weighs only six stone,” said the girl’s father, who did not want to be named for fear of embarrassing the girl further.

Tam Fry of the National Obesity Forum wants children to be banned from playing the game, claiming that BMI is not an accurate measure to determine whether they are overweight or not.

Nintendo will place a warning on the game, and a spokesman stated, “Nintendo would like to apologise to any customers offended by the in-game terminology used to classify a player’s current BMI status, as part of the BMI measurement system integrated into Wii Fit.”

Coming off the overwhelming success Wii Fit has already secured in Japan–more than 2 million units have been sold so far–Nintendo is ready to bring the balance board to North America. While Wii Fit has become somewhat of a family sensation in Japan, Miyamoto says he’s not sure how an American audience will receive the game. When we asked Miyamoto what he expected from American consumers, he noted that on average, American families are apart more often than those in Japan. A lot of families have parents who have separated or divorced, so it’s tougher to predict the role family will play in the American response to Wii Fit.

With that said, though, Miyamoto did sugggest that there is potential for the Wii Fit balance board to be used in other games, including those made by third party developers. Additionally, he hinted that the game may be connected with the Nintendo DS.