Maya's sequel is back in the works!

According to a recent posting to the Yourself!Fitness discussion board, the long-delayed next installment of the franchise, Yourself!Fitness Lifestyle, is back on track. Full details to be released "soon". Hurray!

Here's the full announcement:

Dear faithful Yourself!Fitness customers,

The responDESIGN Team wishes all the fans of Maya and Yourself!Fitness a happy and healthy Valentine's Day!

We are as excited as ever about the future of fitness gaming and are looking forward to a bright future for Maya and the Yourself!Fitness brand of fitness products.

We have inventory of our Yourself!Fitness for the Xbox, Playstation 2 and PC, as well as many of the accessories you've asked for like the Y!F Stability Ball, Y!F Water Bottles and more.

We are working on the next Yourself!Fitness title called Y!F Lifestyle to be released on the new game consoles and the PC. Y!F Lifestyle has many of the new features that you asked us to create and we will be releasing the details for this new product soon!

Please stay tuned for more great fitness gaming products from your friends at responDESIGN and Yourself!Fitness.

Sincerely,
The responDESIGN/Yourself!Fitness Team.

--
maya

Action Videogames Improve Eyesight

From this article:

Video games that contain high levels of action, such as Unreal Tournament, can actually improve your vision, according to a group of Researchers at the University of Rochester.

In an article to be published in Psychological Science, they have shown that people who played action video games for a few hours a day over the course of a month improved by about 20 percent in their ability to identify letters presented in clutter—a visual acuity test similar to ones used in regular ophthalmology clinics.

In essence, playing video game improves your bottom line on a standard eye chart.

Conan O'Brien beats Serena Williams at Wii Tennis

Time: "Is the Wii Really Good for Your Health?"

Time magazine recently posted an excellent article on videogame fitness, focusing mainly on the Wii but also bringing in a variety of related articles and scientific findings on using videogames as exercise or rehabilitative therapy.

Not only have some gamers started turning the Wii and other similar active gaming consoles into a new form of exercise, but medical researchers are touting their health potential for more than just weight loss. A research team at the University of Toronto is developing a "therapeutic video game" to treat children who suffer from hemiplegic cerebral palsy, a condition that can partially paralyze one side of the body. If the children regularly use their weaker side, their motor function can improve. The problem is getting the children to do so outside of therapy sessions. Active video games might do the trick, thought William Li, an undergraduate engineering student at the University of Toronto who is conducting research at the university's Bloorview Kids Rehab teaching hospital.

[...]

But weight loss is still probably the biggest health benefit the Wii will have for users. Active video games like the Wii can fight child obesity, according to a report published by the Mayo Clinic in the January issue of Pediatrics. In that study, researchers found that children burned three times as many calories playing "active" video games versus playing traditional hand-held video games. Because the study was done before the Wii debuted, researchers tested Sony's EyeToy and Microsoft's Xbox. But Lorraine Lanningham-Foster, the report's lead researcher, expects the Wii to have the same effect. "If children are up moving around versus sitting down, then they're going to burn more calories," she says.

Also, our previously-mentioned Mickey DeLorenzo has signed a deal on a book tentatively titled The Wii Workout. Read the whole thing.