I'm a competitive dancer who recently won three national championships in the U.S. In the gym at 6 a.m.? Give me a wave, I'm the one running up and down the stairs. In the weight area? That's me pressing 850 pounds with my legs. Over by the stretching mats? I'll be working on my splits; be sure to say "hi."

Don't worry about recognizing me -- trust me, you'll know me when you see me. At five-foot-four, 280 pounds, I'm not just an athlete, I'm a fatlete. I am living proof that health is not about body size, and that we are all free to stop buying into the idea that our size determines our abilities or our opportunities for success.

I'm a big proponent of behaviour centred health (where healthy behaviours are the goal rather than a certain weight or size), which is one of the reasons why I was thrilled when Nintendo created the Wii Fit. "Here's an opportunity for people to have fun and move their bodies. Awesome!" Or is it? You see, I started hearing stories about the Wii making people feel bad about themselves. Not one for secondhand information, I decided to check out the software for myself.

I began by creating my Mii, which is very much like playing with paper dolls that come with way too many options. I tried to accurately depict my body type but, like so many misguided clothing designers, the Wii assumes that the shorter you are the thinner you must be, so I wasn't able to get an accurate online representation of my figure.

Disappointed but undeterred, I moved on to the Wii's fitness-assessment process. It asked for my height, the weight of the clothes I was wearing and my date of birth (for the record, I'm 33). Once I'd input all the required data, the TV screen told me to step on the Wii balance board, which immediately made a surprised "Oh!" sound. (Apparently it says that to everyone, no matter what you weigh, but it was a bit of a shock -- much like if Baby Bear's chair could talk.) The Wii gave me a little lecture about the benefits of good posture, then asked me to perform a few tasks that involved shifting my weight from side to side to calculate how good my posture really was (almost perfect, as it turns out). Finally, the weigh-in. I stood on the balance board, which now functioned as a digital scale, and my onscreen persona started to expand -- ah, I thought, that looks much more like me. I was quite pleased.

And then the bad thing happened. The Wii played music that was as ominous as simple digitized notes could sound, and my Mii began to look very sad and concerned. My body seemed to be the right size, but my happy, cheerful disposition was gone. I looked depressed and worried, which is not like me.

My body mass index (a simple calculation based on weight and height) popped up on the screen, along with a scale from underweight to obese. My marker shot right up to the top and a chipper voice announced, "That's obese!" Then the Wii told me that my real age was 45 (at which point my Mii bent over and held her aching back) and that, according to my BMI, my body was weaker than it should be.