Shock! 'Active' Gaming Better for Kids than Sitting Down

'Active' video games that get kids up off the couch are better for them than those that have them sat down. True story. Academics have proven it. Alison M McManus, a researcher from the University of Hong Kong's Institute of Human Performance reckons that games that get kids moving are part of the solution to getting them off their arses to exercise.

While doing a study into the amount of exercise different types of games provide kids with, McManus and her colleague, Robin R Mellecker, found that children can burn as much as four times as many calories per minute when playing an 'active' game as when playing a seated game.

The study measured the number of calories burned and the heart rate of 18 six to 12-year-olds when playing a seated game, a bowling game and a running game. They played each game in five minute bursts, with a resting period of five minutes in between.

The study found that playing the passive game resulted in 39% more calories being burned than when resting, 98% more were used with the bowling game and 451% more were burned in the running game. Heart rates were also significantly higher while the more active games were being played.

Now, you might expect that the games in question would be for the Wii, right? The mainstream loves Nintendo's console, after all. The Daily Mail certainly does, it would seem. The browser header for its story regarding this research reads, 'How the Nintendo Wii keeps children fit and could turn the tide of obesity'. Well, that's not what the report's about at all.

Rather than using the most popular new-generation console on the market, which is built around games that can get kids on their feet, the researchers have used products from a company called XaviX. Go figure. Still, 'Wii' grabs folks attention better than tech from some company they've never heard of right, Daily Mail? Even when its being nice to games it gets it wrong...

"In the J-Mat game -- Jackie Chan Action Run -- the children raised their heart rate to 160 beats per minute, expending more than 5 kilocalories of energy per minute compared with only 1.3 kilocalories when seated", McManus said. "When using the XaviX Bowling game, which essentially is a standing game with light intensity movement, children expended 0.6 kilocalories per minute more than seated computer game play."

The brief version of the study's conclusion tells us, “This study has shown that using active gaming media results in meaningful increases in energy expenditure and heart rate compared with the seated screen environment. Manipulating the gaming environment can provide children with appealing activity alternatives, and further development of "exertainment" interventions is warranted, in particular determination of sustainability.” Amazing!

The report, dubbed, Energy Expenditure and Cardiovascular Responses to Seated and Active Gaming in Children, is published in this month's Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.