Sue Stanley-Green, a professor of athletic training at Florida Southern College in Lakeland, told Reuters, “We are looking to incorporate Wii Fit into the athletic training room as far as rehabilitation, for example, on post-operative knees and ankles.”

“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.