Second Life Weight Management

Second Life has been a very new experience for me as I'm sure it has been for some of the rest of the class. As I have been seeing so many areas for incorporating such an interesting tool into various aspects of research I have also wondered what role Second Life would play in my own personal life and issues. As we have all tried to get our avatars to look like ourselves I noticed myself trying to make my avatar look more like the person that I used to be or would like to become. I found this interesting news clip that addresses how people tend to create avatars to look like themselves except in the area of weight. This seems to be a ripe area for research as gaming systems like Wii Fit try to take advantage of the technology in order to try to improve exercise practices. This particular news clip is interesting because maybe there is a link between creating an avatar to look like how you want to look can help you to achieve those goals. Perhaps by learning (scripting) some fancy dance moves or skills in Second life we will also see ourselves breaking loose or moving more in our real lives?