Tuesday, October 28

Health Experts Back Video Games

Exercise makes video games acceptable.

A research study has been completed to determine the free choice in activity of children aged between 7 and 11 yrs, when given three activity stations:

  • Traditional games with no physical activity
  • Gamercize stepper and cycle fitness machines on PlayStation 2
  • Traditional stepper and cycle fitness machines with no gaming
Given free choice the children were 6 times more likely to engage in physical activity with Gamercize over traditional fitness equipment and they burned nearly 28 times more calories with Gamercize than playing sedentary games.



Here's what the health experts said after reviewing the findings.

“This test encouraged children to be more active, and that’s a great starting point. I know as a dad that the reason why video games are so popular is because they are so good, and kids will not leave them. It’s better to be smart and work with the games, making children more active in the process.”
Dr Ian Campbell, Medical Director of Weight Concern and Associate Specialist University Hospital Nottingham

“This is a very interesting result – it opens up a possible way of getting children more active.”
Dr Colin Waine, Chairman of the National Obesity Forum

“My feelings are mainly supportive, looking at the study, and the products at face value as a means of increasing physical activity in novel and attractive ways. Childhood obesity is, obviously, a major problem, and conventional methods of tackling it have failed miserably, so congratulations for thinking of an innovative new way.”
Dr David Haslam, Clinical Director of the National Obesity Forum

The study results show the effectiveness of Gamercize and the power of using video games for health. Ultimately the kids win out by keeping active and having fun.


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4 comments:

Dr. Ernie "PA Evangelist" Medina, Jr. said...

Great news! Is this study published so we can cite it?

gamercize @ said...

The study is in Future Fitness (Sept 2007 issue), with editorial by Nicola Lambert.

Anonymous said...

Sounds good, but no need for high tech playstation bicycle, nowdays we have Nintendo Wii which is an interactive console - This combines both the HD high quality video features and the fun over exercising moving and swinging arms.

gamercize @ said...

Nintendo Wii is not HD and the wii mote games will burn up to 180 kcal per hour. For max fun and fitness the best option is not the child Gamercize machines pictured here but the next-gen Gamercize Pro-Sport. These portable fitness machines work with 360 and PS3 for any game online, offline and in HD. When you're fit enough the max burn can be cranked up to 650 kcal with the Power Stepper. Of course there is a version for the Wii that supports more games than the wii mote, including gamecube, downloaded and naturally top wii titles such as Mario Kart, Smash Bros, Zelda. Gamercize is a power up for wii for fun and fitness.