Study Concludes Exercise Games Aren't Helping Kids

[Unesh52]

Too many parents (and people in general) think that learning can always be fun, or that you can always "bait" someone into doing what you want... and that just isn't effective. You might get short-term success with baiting, but in the long run you'll actually do more damage.

I'm not saying give Jimmy a cool 20 bucks to join the lacrosse team, I'm saying encourage it. Play sports with your kids, set a good example by exercising yourself, or just do your best to make it sound fun. Despite your assertion to the contrary, I don't see any reason that healthy choices have to be things kids don't want to do.

 

[Unesh52]

They're obviously not a substitute for real exercise like cycling, swimming, jogging etc.

Why not? The energy spent expanding and contracting one's leg muscles to move a bike is the same kind of energy spent to step along in DDR isn't it? I imagine it differs only by efficiency with regard to time, which is easy to correct for.

 

[Draconalis]

As someone who lives in Houston, Texas,I can say this with absolute certainty.

Man it's hot.

 

[Therumancer]

Well, I think the issue is that the study was conducted in houses without gaming consoles and thus not involving gamers. No real requirement was given for the usage of these games.

As I see things households who don't have game systems probably don't have them at this point due to a lack of general interest, or doing other things. Unsurprisingly the people with the consoles inserted into their homes probably didn't radically alter their life styles. The kids probably played with it a bit, but kept right on doing whatever it was that caused them to look that way to begin with since it was their primary interest... or a requirement. A kid whose family doesn't have a console might very well be so poor that the kid has to spend time working, and work does not always mean a lot of exercise, sitting around minding a store or whatever doesn't nessicarly mean you do much. Heck in a decade or so of security work I was well on my way to my current obese state (from being in pretty good shape) just from stress and inactvity.

To really judge, you'd have to find kids who actually used these products regularly, and as intended, which means families with consoles, and kids who wanted those titles. Some kid who say wanted "Dance, Dance, Revolution" or whatever game is out there for this now and begged for it for six months, and does nothing but play it on the highest difficulties trying to beat his scores every waking moment is a far better example of someone who "plays the game".

Likewise fitness programs for a console, are like any other kind of fitness system, they require work and adherance to the program. They work as long as you stick with it. The console programs are basically the same as any other workout system, it works if you do it every day for the allotted time, and keep pushing yourself to go a little further and faster each time.

 

[Strazdas]

So getting tired while playing a game makes you want to rest instead of getting even mroe tired. Children learn. If they excercise and get tired, and they dont like to be tired, they learn to not exercise. good job wii for making world fatter.

 

[Evil Smurf]

so the wii is not as good as it would seem. hmmmm. *goes back to playing zelda

 

[weirdee]

oh come on

of course anything in the absence of context or motivation is going to fail to have an effect on whatever subject you're studying

but that doesn't immediately invalidate the wii as a useful device for exercising, but it might not be designed to work specifically on what the subject wants

kids won't just automatically latch onto anything you hand them without forming a connection with it first, and that includes sports

 

[imnot]

You mean flailing my arms about madly isn't exercise!?
Who would have thought it!

 

[Vivi22]

If you eat far more fatty foods BEYOND your body's ability to completely burn while gaming

Consuming fat doesn't make you fat, and if you were eating a diet based largely on protein and fat it would be so satiating that it's unlikely anyone will overeat based on those foods. Carbohydrates are the problem for fat storage and poor health. Namely sugar, wheat, and starches.

scarfing down all of those chips, pizza and soda you WILL get fat

Yes they will, but here's the rundown on why. Chips? Starch. Pizza? Wheat. Soda? Sugar. Funny that you ascribe to the old notion of fat being the culprit in the previous quoted statement then mention soda. People know soda makes you fat, they know it's the sugar that does it. But few people ever stop and ask why sugar is stored as fat when so-called experts have been saying for years that low fat is the way to lose weight. Sugar is a carbohydrate though. So which one is really the problem? Honestly, the problem is over consumption of the one macronutrient we don't need in order to live. Carbs.

Fat storage and fat loss are almost entirely down to diet which is why studies focusing on physical activity in children alone will rarely see results. If they stick with the same shitty diet then no amount of increased activity is going to help them lose weight. In fact, by sticking with the same shitty diet they're almost guaranteed to exercise less simply because they have no energy. My experience with kids has not been one of them being afraid or too lazy to be active except when their diets make them fat and tired.

 

[rayen020]

well if you play for fun yeah you aren't going to get a good workout, you're going to have fun. i mean i know people who wouldn't do more than three songs on DDR cause they'd break a sweat. if you want a workout you actually have to have a workout. DDR and wii fit and those like it can be incorporated. they don't need to be exclusive though, you still need to go outside, vitamin D and all that.

 

[Dastardly]

Too many parents (and people in general) think that learning can always be fun, or that you can always "bait" someone into doing what you want... and that just isn't effective. You might get short-term success with baiting, but in the long run you'll actually do more damage.

I'm not saying give Jimmy a cool 20 bucks to join the lacrosse team, I'm saying encourage it. Play sports with your kids, set a good example by exercising yourself, or just do your best to make it sound fun. Despite your assertion to the contrary, I don't see any reason that healthy choices have to be things kids don't want to do.

And I'm not saying that healthy things must be miserable and un-fun. I am saying, however, that most of the time they won't be a kid's first choice. Because given the choice between sitting and watching Spongebob, or running and sweating and aching, which would most people choose? We don't choose the unhealthy things because they're unhealthy. We choose them because they're easier.

Same is true of homework vs. video games, or any other situation. The most important thing we can learn as we mature is how to do what we need to do even when there are easier or more fun alternatives. And most of the time, we learn that lesson early on because someone holds us to it, rather than waits for us to want to do it.

 

[Dastardly]

They're obviously not a substitute for real exercise like cycling, swimming, jogging etc.

Why not? The energy spent expanding and contracting one's leg muscles to move a bike is the same kind of energy spent to step along in DDR isn't it? I imagine it differs only by efficiency with regard to time, which is easy to correct for.

Not so.

When you're cycling, you're encountering a LOT more resistance. And DDR can be played by using mostly your feet... or even toes. Consider, for instance, that you burn 50% more calories RUNNING a mile than you do WALKING a mile -- despite that frightfully common old wives tale that you burn the same amount.

Activities that cause you to consume more oxygen are going to burn more calories... because increased oxygen demand is your body's way of telling you that you're burning more. If you're not breathing heavy and sweating, you're not burning as much (or you're very, very used to the physical activity).

 

[Elementary - Dear Watson]

You mean standing in my living room leaning from side to side and then standing through 4 hours of menu screens for my 2nd turn isn't the same as going for a run? And jogging on the spot for 3 mins isn't the same as an 80 min rugby match? And 10 of the slowest press-ups in the world isn't the same as the 44 in 2 mins I have to do as a minimum on my fitness test?

No. Fucking. Way!

Did that really need a study!? I thought the whole idea of Wii fit was to make kids slightly more active and to encourage them to venture outside... that's why most of the games, especially the balance games, are based outside, and based on actual outdoor activities to plant that initial thought and banish the outdoor fear!?

 

[Aurora Firestorm]

I conclude that studies that waste money telling kids not to bother exercising with their game consoles to be unhelpful to the public.

instead reveals they're more likely to slack off in other ways to make up for playing hours of Wii Fit.

....and this only happens with exercising with game consoles? I'll bet after running a lap around the football field that kids also slack off.

This. This, this, this.

I play DDR. I was once pretty darn good at DDR, but I've been taking up other exercise hobbies lately. Still, I got in noticeably better cardiovascular shape using DDR. And honestly, after an hour of Heavy Mode, what do you want to do? You want to sit down! You want to drink an entire pitcher of water and loaf on the couch because *you're tired.* When you're out of breath and your muscles are aching, whether it's from playing Wii Fit or DDR or swimming laps in the pool, you're going to relax and rest it off. You're not going to go walk around the block thirteen times, because you already did your daily exercise, and you're tired.

As for "making it up elsewhere," study after study is showing that just exercise doesn't help you get in shape. You have to eat less and/or healthier, depending on what your diet was like ahead of time, because exercise tells the body OMG YOU'RE GOING TO RUN OUT OF FOOD NOW EAT MORE. So people who exercise and don't bother caring about nutrition eat more because their bodies are freaked out and think we're still on the African plain. So kids are just doing what bodies naturally do. They're kids; of course they're going to listen to instinct.

The way to answer this study isn't by saying "exercise games are useless," it's saying, "You should regulate kids' food intake so they actually lose weight" or "you should schedule other exercise activities alongside it so that they get *more* exercise" or whatever you're trying to accomplish.

Dastardly: what DDR do you play? If you're trying to be ultra-efficient, maybe you can use just your feet, but it's hard for me to even imagine that. I don't know what kind of freaky prehensile tentacle-legs you have, but I have to throw my body all around that pad, and all my friends and I come out of Heavy Mode drenched in sweat and with hearts racing. DDR is great exercise.

 

[Unesh52]

When you're cycling, you're encountering a LOT more resistance. And DDR can be played by using mostly your feet... or even toes. Consider, for instance, that you burn 50% more calories RUNNING a mile than you do WALKING a mile -- despite that frightfully common old wives tale that you burn the same amount.

Activities that cause you to consume more oxygen are going to burn more calories... because increased oxygen demand is your body's way of telling you that you're burning more. If you're not breathing heavy and sweating, you're not burning as much (or you're very, very used to the physical activity).

Clearly you do not play DDR on the higher difficulties. And like I said, it differs only in efficiency. You might burn more calories per minute running than walking, but given enough time, you can still walk off calories equal to a half-hour jog. You can replace a jogging routine with DDR; you just have to correct for the amount of calories you burn per unit of time. And if you're not playing on the easiest modes, I don't even think there's that big a difference in efficiency.

 

[Marcus Kehoe]

You know what you do? Make kids exercise to play video games. Every hour they play they have to workout for an half-hour, worked for me. I play metal gear for 3 hours have to do hour and a half of physical activity or I get the controllers taken away.