The videogames business, after hitting a new sales high last year, this week plans to showcase new technologies to help spur further growth -- including a new product from Nintendo Co. to get users to exercise using their Wii game consoles.

Nintendo announced today that it will ship a new exercise product on May 19 in the U.S. called Wii Fit that comes with a weight-and-motion sensing device called the Wii Balance Board.

The active-play phenomenon started by Wii Sports now spreads to your whole body thanks to the pressure-sensitive Wii Balance Board (name not final), which comes packed with Wii Fit. The board is used for an extensive array of fun and dynamic activities, including aerobics, yoga, muscle stretches and games. Many of these activities focus towards providing a "core" workout, a popular exercise method that emphasizes slower, controlled motions. Family members will have fun staying active and talking about and comparing their results and progress on a new channel on the Wii Menu.

There was a strong correlation between video game skills and a surgeon's capabilities performing laparoscopic surgery in the study published in the February issue of Archives of Surgery.

Laparoscopy and related surgeries involve manipulating instruments through a small incision or body opening where the surgeon's movements are guided by watching a television screen.

Video game skills translated into higher scores on a day-and-half-long surgical skills test, and the correlation was much higher than the surgeon's length of training or prior experience in laparoscopic surgery, the study said.

Out of 33 surgeons from Beth Israel Medical Center in New York that participated in the study, the nine doctors who had at some point played video games at least three hours per week made 37 percent fewer errors, performed 27 percent faster, and scored 42 percent better in the test of surgical skills than the 15 surgeons who had never played video games before.

Game players move their feet on a special mat to correspond to arrows that scroll on the TV screen. The player must tap the same symbols on the mat at just the right time to do well.

The game is not meant to replace physical education and health classes. Rather, it is one more option that may appeal to students who often dislike other sports.

"If we can get children to change their behavior at a young age they hopefully will grow up to be healthy, active adults, which would have a positive effect on health care costs," said Carl Callison with Mountain State Blue Cross.

West Virginia is consistently among the top three states for obesity, with about a third of its residents considered obese and even more overweight, according to the state Bureau of Public Health.

Most people know part of Fogle's story, he said, but don’t realize he started gaining weight in third grade. "I can trace it back to when I was given the best birthday present of my life: a Nintendo."

At that point, Fogle said, he started playing video games more and riding his bike and playing sports less. He became sedentary. With his love of video games, he developed a love of junk food.

"I usually had one hand on the controller and one in a bag of chips," he said. By the time he reached sixth grade, he was bigger than the other children, he said, and his father, a doctor, started to worry.

"They tried restricting my Nintendo time, but I found ways to get around it," Fogle said.

"Three top reasons are the 'Three N's,' Nickelodeon, Nintendo and Netscape — television, video games and computers. Kids are getting less activity."