Jenny
Site Admin
Joined: 03 Mar 2006
Posts: 511
Report abuse
|
 Posted: 01/09/07 - 10:26 Post subject: Getting physical while gaming |
  |
|
Mayo Clinic researchers came to an idea to create video games that required activity and see if this would contribute to lowering obesity risks among children and adolescents.
The researchers figured that screen games could be healthier if they were more active, so they scientifically measured the energy spent playing video games and watching TV with or without being active.
The study included only 25 children, 15 of normal weight and 10 mildly obese. The children were tested while sitting and watching television, playing a traditional video game, playing two types of activity-required video games, and watching television while walking on a treadmill.
The study showed that sitting while watching television and playing traditional video games expended the same amount of energy. When participants played with the first activity-oriented video game, in which children needed to move as if they were catching balls and other objects, their energy expenditure tripled. The results were the same for the for both groups of children, lean and mildly obese.
Walking on a treadmill while watching TV tripled energy expenditure in lean group, but increased five times in the mildly obese group. A dance video game made both groups burn the most calories, but considerably more the obese group. They burned six times more calories than sitting still.
The researchers suggest that adding activity to video games could reverse rising obesity. The American Academy of Paediatrics recommends that children should not spend more than two hours a day in front of electronic screens, including TV, video and computer games.
The problem is that computers are used for education nowadays. Teachers ask children to do researchers on the internet. This certainly contributes to the obesity epidemic.
Researchers suggest that children should be limited in the amount of time they could play and use computers as such behaviour was found to help children do better in school and get into fewer fights as well as have a very good impact on their general health. |
|
