Kids Who Play Nintendo Wii Do Not Exercise More, Study Finds

(Reuters) - Virtual boxing, tennis and dancing along with video game systems may not be helping children meet daily exercise requirements, according to a U.S. study.

Researchers from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas found that children who were given so-called active video games to play on a Nintendo Wii didn't end up logging any more moderate or vigorous physical activity than those given games they could play sitting on the couch.

Some public health researchers have hoped that active video games might be an alternative to outdoor play and sports for at least some of the physical activity children need, especially for those who live in unsafe neighborhoods where playing outside isn't always an option.

"We expected that playing the video games would in fact lead to a substantial increase in physical activity in the children," said Tom Baranowski and colleagues at Baylor.

"Frankly, we were shocked by the complete lack of difference."

For the study, they passed out Wii consoles to 78 children who didn't already have one. Half were given their choice of an active game, such as Wii Sports or Dance Dance Revolution-Hottest Party 3, and the other half their choice of inactive game, such as Disney Sing-It Pop Hits or Super Mario Galaxy.

Halfway through the study, which was published in Pediatrics, the children -- all 9 to 12-years-old and above average weight -- got their choice of a second game from the same category as their first.

Baranowski and his colleagues tracked the children for 13 weeks, testing their physical activity levels with a motion-measuring device called an accelerometer.

Participants wore the devices on a belt during four different week-long periods throughout the study, which allowed the research team to determine when they were sedentary, lightly exercising, or engaged in moderate-to-vigorous exercise.

Accelerometer logs showed that throughout the study period, children with the active games didn't get any more exercise than those given inactive video games.

At weeks one, six, seven and 12, children in the active game group got an average of 25 to 28 minutes of moderate or vigorous physical activity each day, compared to between 26 and 29 minutes for those in the inactive video game group.

There was also no difference in the time spent doing light physical activity or being sedentary during any week the researchers monitored.

Baranowski said his team couldn't tell if children just didn't exert much energy playing the active games, or if they compensated for exercise they got playing Wii with less exercise at other points in the day.

Nintendo was not available for comment and other researchers said that while the games were no substitute for the real thing, they might be better than no exercise at all.

It's possible that children playing active Wii games burned a few extra calories that the movement device didn't pick up on -- for instance, if they were moving their arms a lot in a boxing game, said Jacob Barkley, an exercise scientist from Kent State University in Ohio who didn't take part in the study.

"Maybe the Wii isn't going to increase physical activity a whole heck of a lot," Barkley told Reuters Health.

"But it might increase caloric expenditure a bit more than a traditional sedentary video game, and if you do that on a daily basis that could have a cumulative effect that might be beneficial."

(Editing by Elaine Lies and Bob Tourtellotte)

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Comments

[Edogg62]

01:21 PM on 02/29/2012

All I know is it gets my kids off the couch on days when it's too cold, too rainy or too late in the day to go outside. And anytime they attempt to circumvent the system and play it sitting down I tell them they have to stand up to keep playing.

We live in a hyper-sedentary culture and I applaud the efforts of Nintendo to make dent in it. Lest we see fiction slowly become reality a-la "Wall-E" that is.

[Maderous]

01:08 AM on 02/29/2012

Im sorry, but I broke a solid sweat playing one of those dancing games. I workout regularly and was sore the next day after playing for a few hours with my nieces and nephews. Not sure how the measured this, but something doesn't add up. If a kids played that game everyday for just 30 mins, they'll get a good workout.

[Jason Bullock]

10:59 AM on 02/29/2012

You know what else will get a kid's heart rate up? Going outside.

It's insanly easy to do those dancing games without even standing up, or even barely moving, heck, all Wii games for that matter.

My buddy utterly destroyed his wife at some dancing game, and he hardly even moved. Kids, like my friend, will always find the easy way.

[Susan of Wales]

06:50 PM on 02/28/2012

Now they should do a study on seniors and disabled people who use Wii for exercise and rehab.

We first ran across it three years ago when my sweetheart was in rehabilitation and we were amazed at how much use the physical therapists were making of the "games". Not only did it help to pass the time, patients of all ages were doing a lot more of the exercises needed while enjoying themselves. The patients also socialized more while they were "playing".

I still use it daily for some aerobics, memory work, and balance games.

[Morto00x]

05:36 PM on 02/28/2012

I don't think an accelerometer attached to the belt would be good enough to measure the amount of exercise that the kids have. They were basically given pedometers, which are kind of useless if you are standing in front of the TV. There's a reason why most fitness tracking devices are usually worn in the arms or wrists. A more serious research would have at least measured the heart rates of the kids to know if they were actually having a work-out.

[Bryan Walker]

05:31 PM on 02/28/2012

I don't know, im going to have to disagree with this article from personal experience. I challenge any of the scientists to play the hula hoop wii fit game and not feel the burn and break a killer sweat. Is it going to make me look like a bolo flex infomercial? NO. Will it burn some calories get me off my bum and have some fun at the same time. Absolutely,

[Tanya OaksBrooks]

04:53 PM on 02/28/2012

My guess is that the kids weren't actually playing the games that require a great deal of movement. I've played those games myself while wearing a heart rate monitor, and found that I burned four times as many calories as I would have while sitting. After the running games, I'm dripping sweat, so I KNOW I'm getting some real exercise. There are games that require far less effort, of course, and a kid who stuck to those wouldn't get nearly as much benefit. The article said that the kids could choose a Wii Sports game, which would include things like golf, which makes me wonder if they even had access to the games requiring more strenuous exercise.

Another thing I must question is the use of an accelerometer to gauge how much exercise the kids were getting. Accelerometers are not created for this purpose, and something like a heart rate monitor would have been a far better choice. Since the study was done with kids who were above average weight, it's likely that they would get a cardiovascular benefit with less movement than their more fit counterparts.

[Peace Walker]

04:45 PM on 02/28/2012

If kids can do it sitting down they will. I have seen it myself. Games that are supposed to be active/fencing style games, teenage boys will just sit at "game" the system.

[Leon Engelun]

03:47 PM on 02/28/2012

Hey Kids exercise, kids have the strongest thumbs these days. They should have an olympic catagory for thumb lifting or something.

[Whythehate]

01:37 PM on 02/28/2012

You're kidding me... An article titled "Bad News for Wii Users" is about kids who play video games and therefore aren't exercising?? I was expecting something about game prices going up, lack of production for new games, a systemic flaw causing unreasonably short hardware lifespans, etc, etc.

I really want to like this news outlet. I really do! But c'mon!! This is just stu pid.

[Susan of Wales]

06:52 PM on 02/28/2012

Yeah, that threw me, too. I had this sinking feeling that they were going to stop production or something.

[tie23]

09:14 AM on 03/01/2012

Spot on. As you read through the article, you realize the "study" may not be really be worth much given how they did it (the location of sensors, no details on exactly which game they played, no tracking between when they were playing vs. when they were not, etc.), but the headline still shouts out "Kids Who Play Nintendo Wii Do Not Exercise More". Irresponsible is what it is.

[Post31]

01:32 PM on 02/28/2012

Not only boring but worthless also hahaha. Don't get any better than that.

[Rynchostylus]

01:27 PM on 02/28/2012

Something is better then nothing. If Wii accelerates the heart beat of anyone for even 10 minutes 2x...it's worth it.

That said, the notion of Wii substituting for real exercise for anyone but the infirmed or elderly is just absurd.

[okila]

12:47 PM on 02/28/2012

Bad news for Wii owners... They have a wii..

[edgeninja]

12:15 PM on 02/28/2012

I fail to see how this is "bad news". If you're a serious console gamer, you already knew playing Wii games (or Kinect and Move, for that matter) is no substitute for real exercise. Maybe kids don't realize that.

[Kris 1206]

11:34 AM on 02/28/2012

Virtual exercise systems such as the Nintendo wii will never be able to compete with the likes of real sport. When playing on video games your mind becomes less alert with your surroundings as you are concentrating on the screen. With actual sports like say soccer you have to keep moving and keep looking around for open areas which can increase your awareness.
The Wii, Kinect, and PlayStation move will never be able to replicate real sports as I said at the beginning but they still allow you to exercise unlike traditional gaming. But the thing that a video game can give you is an experience which nothing else can.

[LibbyGal]

11:22 AM on 02/28/2012

"Participants wore the devices on a belt..."

Ah, as anyone who plays theirs can tell you: the best way to play a Wii is to find the best place for the sensors *and stand there!* You're not jumping and you certainly aren't running. You might crouch occasionally but mostly, you are waving your arms for the more active games and they didn't even have any way to track that which cooks in a bias right there because if you aren't measuring the main movements of the activity in question- of course you aren't going to see any differences!

I mean, that's kind of like checking to see if people who run more get more exercise than those who don't by measuring how many times the groups touch their toes...