The whole point of gaming, as any articulate toddler might tell you, is to do away with all that inconvenient reality stuff. You might be a malformed and grotesquely obese monster on peg legs in real life, but out in the wilds of Xbox Live, you’re probably a lithe, gorgeous thing in COG armour. But maybe not for very much longer.

Microsoft’s filed a patent application for an “Avatar Individualized By Physical Characteristic” system. That’s right, they’re looking to yank the gauzy veil of fantasy from your monument of lies. According to the application, “an Avatar generator for a virtual environment reflects a physiological characteristic of the user, injecting a degree of reality into the capabilities or appearance.”

A “degree of reality”? Why don’t they just start shipping consoles with M16s and frag grenades? At least that would be fun for a few hours.

“Linking the avatar to a physical characteristic of a user provides leverage to provide incentives or constraints that can encourage good behaviour (e.g., healthy behaviours, virtuous behaviours, etc.),” says Microsoft. “Physiological data that reflect a degree of health of the real person can be linked to rewards of capabilities of a gaming Avatar, an amount of time budgeted to play, or a visible indication. Thereby, people are encouraged to exercise. Physiological data that reflect the health and perhaps also mood also improve social interaction in virtual environments.”

The company intends to obtain this data through “third party health data collection repository, a health care smart card, a real-time physiological sensor (e.g., blood pressure, heart rate, blood glucose, peak flow, pedometer, etc.),” thereby avoiding “the inconvenience or unaccountability of voluntarily supplied information.” Because that doesn’t sound like a scary, dystopian future at all.

Top secret corporate mandates of authoritarian tyranny aside, of course, it might be nothing more benign than Microsoft’s attempt to cash in on Nintendo’s Wii Fit market. And with Project Natal casting its baleful eye around your lounge, do you really want to shove that box of cupcakes in your face? Someone might see.