A study at Brigham Young University found middle-schoolers who played active video games such as Wii Boxing and Dance Dance Revolution hit the level of moderate to vigorous exercise recommended by experts.
The study, in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, had 39 boys and girls, aged 9 to 13, play various games that required
exercise. Three of the games were designed for commercial use by facilities like
fitness centers and three were popular at-home video games.
Participants were monitored and researchers found that playing
Wi Boxing for 20 minutes can equal walking a mile at a brisk pace.
Most studies of video games as an exercise tool have compared the exergames against the typical sit-down-and-play video games. But the inactivity has become a topic of concern because of a proven link between obesity and sedentary behavior, including “screen time,” which includes time spent watching TV, on the computer or playing video games.
BYU's Bruce W. Bailey, assistant
professor of exercise sciences, and Kyle McInnis of the University of
Massachusetts-Boston found that all of the exergames they studied increased energy expenditures, but some were better than others. Sportwall and Xavix's “Jackie Chan Alley Run” expended the most energy, then LightSpace's “Bug Invasion” and Cybex Trazer's “Goalie Wars.” Sony PlayStation's “Dance Dance Revolution” was next. Nintendo “Wii Boxing” expended the least energy of the six, but they all ranged from moderate to vigorous. Bailey defined moderate as “not quite a brisk walk,” while he defined vigorous as “a light jog for adults.” The Sportwall game was different in that children played in competitive groups, running at a wall to score points.
Even these hopeful findings about an exercise value to some video games comes with a warning, though, from the researchers that not all games are equal. Not even the levels within the games are equal. “We chose games that were vigorous and provided physical activity without being too difficult to participate in,” since if it's too hard, children get frustrated and stop, Bailey said.
“It's another tool to help kids be physically active. And I would hope there's no take-home message that this should replace outdoor activities. But if you like to play video games, this is one way of playing that's more physically active.”
It could also keep kids involved physically when it's too hot or too cold to play outside, when it's not safe to go out or when they need to be inside for other reasons, he said.
Playing the video games was also enjoyable for the kids, he added. And studies have repeatedly shown that kids are more likely to stick with activities they enjoy.
The researchers also compared the kids' body mass indexes and then looked at their enjoyment level in that context. They found that the games boosted energy burned significantly, regardless of whether a child was overweight or not. But the overweight children “tended to enjoy the games slighly more than normal-weight children. Just slightly. And girls liked 'Dance Dance Revolution' more than boys did, while boys liked playing Xavix and 'Wii Boxing' more than the girls did,” Bailey said.
Calories burned per minute:
Resting: 1.1 calories
Treadmill walking 3 mph: 4.4
Wii (Boxing): 4.0
DDR (Thirteen): 4.9
Cyber Trazer (Goalie Wars): 5.5
Light Space (Bug Invasion): 5.7
Sportwall: 6.2:
Xavix (J-Mat): 6.7
That's the finding of a study by
