“Yes, It Counts: Kids Get Exercise with Video Games” plus 2 more |
- Yes, It Counts: Kids Get Exercise with Video Games
- Active Video Games Help Kids Burn Calories
- Video Games That Make Kids Move Burn Calories
| Yes, It Counts: Kids Get Exercise with Video Games Posted: 08 Mar 2011 01:12 AM PST It's a win-win for parents and kids: if you're having trouble convincing your kids to follow the government's advice to get moving, a new study suggests you can just leave them alone with their video games. Okay, so not all video games can boost children's exercise levels, but the latest research shows that games that require the most physical activity are enough to help youngsters break a sweat and reach recommended levels of moderate to vigorous activity. Scientists at Brigham Young University and the University of Massachusetts report Monday in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine that activity-based video games, better known as "exergames," can help children expend at least as much energy — and with some games, even up to twice as much — as walking on a treadmill. (More on Time.com: Obesity: The First Lady Takes on the NRA (No, Not That NRA)) While previous studies have documented the benefits of games such as Dance Dance Revolution and others on the Wii and PlayStation systems, study co-author Bruce Bailey, a professor in exercise sciences at Brigham Young, wanted to learn more about how much impact the games could have on children's fitness. "We were interested in what can children get out of them," he says. "If they chose the right games and the right levels, could they improve their energy expenditure enough so they might have a positive impact on body weight and body composition?" It turns out they can. Compared to the energy they used while remaining sedentary for 15 mins. in the lab, the 39 boys and girls in the study burned up to seven times as much energy after 10 mins. of playing the various exergames. Bailey and his co-author Kyle McInnis of University of Massachusetts studied six exergames, three that are popular on the consumer market, and three that are used widely in commercial children's fitness centers and schools. Wii Boxing, the researchers found, involved the least energy investment, requiring as much as walking on a treadmill for 10 mins. The other five games tested, which included Dance Dance Revolution, Cybex Trazer Goalie Wars, LightSpace Bug Invasion, Sportwall and Xavix J-Mat, involved, in order, increasingly greater levels of energy expenditure. Kids used twice as much energy when they used the Xavix system, on which they played sports or games on a mat that detected their movements, as when they walked on the treadmill. (More on Time.com: Are Working Moms to Blame for Childhood Obesity?) Not only were the participants using more energy than when on a treadmill, but when Bailey and Innis asked the youngsters about how much they liked the games, not surprisingly they were all enthusiastic about the play. "We can put kids on a treadmill, but the likelihood over a long period of time is that it will be difficult to keep the children focused and interested," says Bailey. "If we use something like [exergames], where they want to participate and want to be involved, I think it might benefit both them and everyone trying to deal with the issue of improving physical activity levels." The study is among the first to document that exercise during exergaming can reach levels of what experts define as moderate or vigorous physical activity, and the next step is to start testing these programs in schools to determine whether they can have a real impact on children's physical activity levels. Bailey was particularly encouraged by the fact that the overweight children in the study liked the exergames the most, which suggests that the video games could be an effective way to entice heavier children to start becoming more active. "If these activities can increase energy expenditure, they can reach some children who might not otherwise be reached by traditional PE programs," he says. (More on Time.com: Is School Lunch Making Your Kids Fat?) Tests in school systems will also help researchers get a better idea for how lasting the benefits might be. Children are notoriously fickle after all: they may become enamored of new and different exergame-based programs, but then may quickly tire of them, just as they get bored of the rote nature of physical education classes. In an editorial accompanying the study, James Sallis, a psychologist at San Diego State University, notes:
As with any program aimed at children and teens, the key to exploiting the benefits of exergames may be in holding students' attention long enough to get them hooked on physical activity in general. By starting them out on video games, the hope is that kids will start to want to engage in other kinds of physical activity, such as sports or other organized activity outdoors. At some point, once children get bored with simulating exercise indoors, health officials hope they'll be motivate to get outdoors and do the real thing. Related links: Toddlers' Junk-Food Diet May Lead to Lower IQ Babies Who Start Solids Too Early More Likely To Be Obese Is My Baby Too Fat? Parents Put Infants on Diets This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
| Active Video Games Help Kids Burn Calories Posted: 07 Mar 2011 04:49 PM PST Study Shows Kids With the Highest BMIs Enjoy 'Exergames' the Most By Brenda Goodman March 7, 2011 -- Video games that mix entertainment with exercise can help kids burn calories and have fun at the same time, a new study shows. The study had 39 middle-school aged kids play six different kinds of "exergames" -- video games that require a player to move around. The games included games such as trying to keep up with a cartoon Jackie Chan as he hurdled down the streets of Hong Kong, boxing a virtual opponent, and chasing colored lights on a mat, either to follow dance moves or stomp on bugs. Researchers compared the energy required to play those games or walk on a treadmill at a speed of 3 miles per hour to energy expended at rest. Researchers found that exergames increased the amount of calories each child burned 400% to 800% over their resting metabolic rate, an amount that was at least as good as treadmill walking. Exergames and Kids With High BMIsAlthough all the kids said they had fun, the kids with the highest BMIs were the ones who reported liking exergames the most. "I think that's important," says study researcher Kyle McInnis, ScD, a professor in the department of exercise and sports sciences at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. "Typically, these kids with higher BMIs might be less exposed to sports or have a history of being less successful in activity-based games just because it's more difficult to move around," McInnis tells WebMD. "It was capitalizing on their ability to be successful. In other words, it was kind of built-in positive reinforcement." Other experts say they have noticed the same phenomenon. "If you're in grade three or four and you're the last one picked for the team, that doesn't do a lot for your self-confidence," says Larry Katz, PhD, professor of kinesiology and director of the Sport Technology Research Laboratory at the University of Calgary in Canada. "The nice thing about the exergames is that because it's individualized, you can improve relative to yourself," says Katz. The study is published in the Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine. Previous studies have shown that active video games can help kids increase their physical activity, but experts who reviewed the study for WebMD noted that this one was one of the first to look at how hard kids are working when they play. "One thing that was unique about their study that I haven't seen in other studies was metabolic measurement," Katz says, because you're actually measuring intensity, which is nice because people talk about it, but now you can actually measure whether it's moderate to extensive," he says. Katz has studied the effect of exergames on kids, but was not involved in the current study. The study was also one of the first to measure enjoyment of exergaming, experts say. "People, in general, tend to participate in activities they enjoy. That's true of adults, but it's probably more true of children," says study researcher Bruce W. Bailey, PhD, assistant professor of exercise and sports science at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
| Video Games That Make Kids Move Burn Calories Posted: 07 Mar 2011 01:03 PM PST MONDAY, March 7 (HealthDay News) -- Interactive video games that require high-energy movement raised middle school kids' metabolisms to levels typically seen with moderate or vigorous exercise, a new study finds. Researchers evaluated the effect of six forms of so-called "exergaming" on energy expenditure in 39 children of various body-mass indexes (BMIs) at a youth fitness research and training center at the University of Massachusetts. The children, whose average age was between 11 and 12, had their metabolic rates measured after walking on a treadmill at 3 miles per hour and after 10 minutes on each of six exergames. The digital games included home and commercial versions such as Dance Dance Revolution, Nintendo Wii Boxing, LightSpace Bug Invasion, and Cybex Trazer Goalie Wars, Xavix J-Mat and Sportwall. The researchers noticed that children with higher BMIs -- which included 21 children who were either overweight or at risk of becoming overweight -- enjoyed the exergames more than children of normal weight, though all of them expended similar amounts of energy. "They obviously enjoyed all the games a lot and it's another tool for parents and practitioners to use to increase physical activity in children," said study author Bruce W. Bailey, an assistant professor of exercise sciences at Brigham Young University. "As far as energy expenditure, if you choose the right levels and the right games, you can get some decent physical activity." The study is published in the March 7 online issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. Because "screen time" -- the use of television, videos, computers or video games -- is usually sedentary, it has been associated with the nation's 19 percent childhood obesity rate. But, recent interest in activity-promoting video games may be a viable addition to more traditional exercise, Bailey said. The exergames produced a fourfold to eightfold increase in energy use compared to resting, the study said, and four of the six games tested resulted in higher energy expenditure. "I think it's interesting and potentially useful," he said. "Will [kids] substitute these games for other games? That's an interesting question. If they can, it would have at least an impact on energy expenditure." Elizabeth DiRico, an exercise physiologist for Cigna Healthcare in Findlay, Ohio, said Bailey's findings mirrored the results of a similar study she did with college-age students in 2008. The exergames are "way better" than sedentary digital games and introduce kids to other forms of exercise they may not have tried, said DiRico, who works on health coaching, counseling and preventive care with corporate clients. "The thing with kids is not only that they're sitting in front of video games, but there's often a lot of mindless snacking going on. This makes it harder to snack while they're doing it," she said. "I think the major thing is that this is an alternate or supplement to traditional exercise plans." More information The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on childhood obesity. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
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