West Virginia is now desperate. With a stunning 46 percent of fifth-graders tested in the state’s coronary artery risk project over six years turning out to be overweight or obese, West Virginia is willing to do just about anything to slim down the state’s chubby little children and the attendant health risks they suffer. The solution? Dance Dance Revolution!

Rolling in Konami’s Dance Dance Revolution — a video game in which the participant mimics the foot movements on a footpad to correspond with those shown on the screen — from the arcade into the public school system, West Virginia will allow ten- to fourteen-year-old students (almost 280,000 of them) to opt for the video game in lieu of participating in other sports.  

The theory behind the Dance Dance Revolution project is that the children who dislike certain sports will enjoy and turn to the game for fitness instead of forgoing fitness altogether. And this, while somewhat odd, is preferable to allowing the children to do nothing. However, to allow young children to opt for a video game in lieu of more serious physical education and participation misses the point; students need to enjoy sport, but they also need to develop an understanding of fitness and a sense of physical versatility. And Dance Dance Revolution, while fun, can hardly provide all of that.

West Virginia’s situation is certainly desperately unhealthy — within the U.S., it has the highest blood pressure rate, is within the top three for obesity, and is the fourth highest for diabetes — and hopefully this desperate measure will begin to make a dent in the state’s collective and lethargic consciousness.  

Mimi Hanaoka