My Health Coach: Manage Your Weight (includes FREE Pedometer)

Now then, in the absence of Wii Fi being available anywhere (at least at RRP anyway), Ubisoft having extended their Coaching series with My Health Coach. These Coaching "games" are by no means meant to be hugely entertaining, but merely a tool by which DS owners can improve their lives somehow.

For gym-phobics, strangely enough it might just work. MHC (as I shall refer to it from now on for the sake of my typing) works as a sort of miniature, robotic personal trainer complete with stick-man figure to coax you along. He, or she, sets goals and challenges for you in order to improve your health and encourage you to walk, exercise, etc... You can often be set simple goals such as a few sit-ups, a few push-ups, or even just doing the washing-up (seriously). It also offers 24-hour challenges such as making a healthy meal for yourself within the time limit, walking 15,000 steps a day and other challenges along those lines. The good thing is that all of the challenges are doable and realistically designed to coincide with your own levels of fitness and lifestyle. Gentle persuasion and encouragement from the in-game stick-figure adds a little bit of charm to this title. The game also comes with a nifty little pedometer that connects to your DS via the GBA cartridge port at the bottom which all in all is a nice little touch.

It is by no means a useless tool. There are a lot of people that will find it very useful and could gain real results from it, even if it's just by a little. The real question everyone will need to ask is whether it's worth the price tag. Granted, it doesn't count calories accurately (there is a very simple calorie counting tool involved but otherwise, you might as well use a calculator and do it yourself) but it is a fairly worthwhile tool and if it's the type of tool you're after, you are well advised to give it a try. It's hard to really rate something that isn't a "game" as such. It is a functional title that with the right effort and willpower is most likely going to be worth the time spent. If you've got Wii Fit, you may not need this tool but this is a worthy, albeit cut-down, alternative for those without a Wii or unwilling to pay the £70+ price for Wii Fit.

Three stars cos it's not awful, it's not the best thing ever but it does its job without truly offending anyone.

What is 'My Health Coach'?

Basically, 'My Health Coach' is a tool to help teenagers and adults manage their weight and daily lifestyles. Thus, although it does include game-style quizzes, it in itself is NOT a game.

What does it involve?

MHC helps you to think about changing your lifestyle to a more healthier one by four different methods. Firstly, it monitors the number of steps you walk each day, for which you get a nifty little pedometer that can slot into your DS after a day's walking and calculate your steps.

Secondly, it looks at your food consumption - there are two ways to do this: quickly and detailed. The quick version allows you to determine whether you've had heavy, balanced or light meals throughout the day and gives you
an estimated calorific value for the day. However, as you can imagine, this is not very accurate, which is where the detailed version is helpful. In the detailed version, you can actually select the foods and type of foods you have eaten that day, along with how many actual portions of the food you have consumed. This gives a more accurate estimate of the food you have eaten.

It also checks how much physical activity (besides the pedometor) you have undertaken throughout the day and asks you to record how long you have spent doing physical activities, and what types of physical activity you have done that day.

From the above information, it then calculates your 'Food Balance.' This is represented as a scale, which shows whether you have eaten enough food and done enough physical activity to keep a healthy balance for that day.

MHC also offers 'coaching sessions' on areas of health such as 'Getting more exercise' and 'Eating Healthily' etc.

Where's the fun in that?

Actually, it is surprisingly fun. There are lots of little quirks that make this game interactive. For example, the 'food consumption' section actually makes the 'Player' feed their daily food intake (including accurate portions) to their animated Health Coach via the stylus.

Moreover, MHC features quizzes in the coaching session that determine how healthy you are and give you ratings based on your answers. For example, in the 'Steps to Health' coaching session, which is about walking and moving about more often, the ratings are a) stationary object, b) centipede c) escalator

Of course, there is also the usual mini-games, which are based around your
knowlege of health, food and basic human structure. These allow you to unlock new content within MHC.

Also, there are daily challenges to complete, but none are mandatory, so you get a choice of which ones you want to undertake per day. Challenges fit into four categories: Minute challenges, in which you are given easy tasks
that can be completed in a matter of minutes, 24-hour challenges (usually, but not always physical in nature) that must be completed by the end of the day. For example, "Put your TV remote away and change the channel yourself every time", then there are 'surprise' challenges, and challenges based on your coaching sessions.

When you complete a challenge, you gain a participation stamp and can unlock new content. You can choose up to six challenges each day, but must do at least one per day to proceed to the next stage of MHC.

Okay, but what's the point of all these things?

Well, apart from achieving a healthier you, the goal of all these things is 'milestones' and 'distance'.When you first start MHC, you will be asked to give the following information: Gender, Age, Height and Weight. The DS will then calculate your individual weight management plan.You are also given daily objectives that must be fulfilled to progress.

It won't be to everyone's tastes, but I like it!

Waste of Money. it trys to make you do stupid execises like read recipe, What has that got to with fitness? the biggest waste of money ever even though i bought it for 17.99 it was still a waste. it only counts your steps not distance or calories burnt. i would reccomend spending your £24.99 on a decent pedometer.

I found this very motivating, it sets you a target number of steps to walk with your pedometer each day (you can input by hand if your original pedometer which plugs into advance slot breaks), and a number of calories to eat, an amount of exercise to do, and challenges to do. It is happy with you eating a couple of hundred calories less or more than the target and will tell you that you are in balance. The food inputting can be tricky because it is quite general, for example the only option for inputting that you ate a packet of crisps is for crisps with 300 calories in them, so not always accurate. I find I have to miss out inputting certain foods I ate and give myself too many calories on other foods. The pedometer is also very big and unsubtle but works well. If they were to update it, they should let you input the exact calories and food types yourself, and they should make a smaller pedometer. Apart from that a great idea. Can only store 1 person's stats at a time, if you buy it second hand you can delete the previous stats and start over.

This is NOT a game, it is more a motivational tool to help adults who want to lead a new healthier lifestyle. The Pedometer is helpful as it encourages you to think about how active you are being each day and the coaching and tips gained from My Health Coach help you to think more positively about health and well-being. The challenges are fun and this product has a lot to offer someone who is serious about maintaining their health, however, it can not do all the hard work and does require comitment from the user in order to work. I find it really useful, but it does require willpower.