Obama Administration Joins Video Game Industry In Fitness Challenge

WASHINGTON -- Video games, long demonized by public health officials and parents for contributing to sedentary habits and obesity among children, scored a big win Monday night with a new partnership between the President's Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition and the video game industry's major trade group, the Entertainment Software Association.

The partnership was announced at a splashy reception in the gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum attended by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees, a co-chair of the president's council. It centers on encouraging kids to play active video games that get them off the couch dancing, running, hopping and otherwise moving in ways that sensors translate onto a video screen.

"It's a very different world today than it was just a few years ago," Sebelius told HuffPost. "Kids love the games, and this program is an important way to meet [young people] where they are, and teach them that exercise doesn't need to be punitive, that it can be really fun and keep you healthy in the long run."

The partnership centers around a challenge in which gamers go online and log their time playing active video games. If the player logs enough hours over a six-week period, he or she wins a Presidential Active Lifestyle Award. The challenge includes healthy eating goals, and is structured for kids and parents to do together. [To learn more about enrolling, click here.]

The president’s council and the software group "recognize the need to embrace technology in the fight against childhood obesity,” said Brees. "And through this program we are motivating kids and families to adopt a healthy lifestyle by using active video games."

The announcement comes after President Barack Obama in a 2009 speech to the American Medical Association blamed video games for contributing to skyrocketing U.S. obesity. "It means going for a run or hitting the gym, and raising our children to step away from the video games and spend more time playing outside," Obama said then.

In the past three years, however, the gaming industry has seen an explosion in the popularity, and technical sophistication, of active electronic games including Nintendo's Wii console, which rely on sensors and batons to detect players' movements that are then translated onto the screen.

The active gaming trend has even made it all the way to the White House, where last Christmas, Obama gave his two daughters a copy of the dancing video game "Just Dance 3," which he purchased at a Best Buy store in Northern Virginia.

First Lady Michelle Obama has also warmed to the potential of video games to help keep kids active. Her signature program, Let's Move!, which encourages active play to combat childhood obesity, announced a video game health challenge in 2010 that encouraged the software industry to develop more active games for young people.

"Active video games have a tremendous new potential to get kids up off the couch and exercising their whole bodies, not just their thumbs," said Erik Huey, a senior vice president at the Entertainment Software Association. "Given that so many children spend up to seven hours a day in front of screens, this industry is the only one right now that is converting that screen time into active time, and coming up with new ways to do that every day."

WATCH: President Obama goes shopping for video games

Comments

[l78lancer]

01:39 PM on 05/03/2012

Wah! Wah! Far leftwing liberals are just as two dimensional and thick-headed as rightwing cons. Just because you didn't get everything you wanted doesn't make everything else worthless. This is a good thing. Get over it.

[Amy Cummings-Barnabi]

10:30 PM on 05/01/2012

http://web.me.com/abarnabi/THIINKFit/THIINKFit.html

Three years ago I did a graduate project entitled, "The THIINKFit Project." It involves how exercising just 20 minutes a day at school can improve state testing scores, self-esteem, healthy minds & bodies, and fight bullying. It works. Find our webpage at the link above, or contact me on FACEBOOK - THIINKFit. I've been trying to talk to anyone and everyone that will listen. The most natural thing in the world for a child to do is move. Implemented, THIINKFit teaches children to move early and often in life! I am a 6,7,8th grade teacher in a disadvantaged school district in the NE part of OH. Contact me at [e-mail]!

[Andrea Blackwell]

11:05 PM on 05/01/2012

I always thought the Japanese were brilliant for the morning routines. But now that I've kinda broken my groove thang, I find Wii games very helpful for physical therapy. I'm glad the other game boxes have followed suit.

[deucejuice]

12:24 PM on 05/01/2012

Active video games like the Wii, PlayStation Move

[gurloc]

10:36 AM on 05/01/2012

Very good idea. Now is there a video game that will teaches how to stand up to the republican party?

I can't wait to see how the GOP spins this, in the 50's fantasy world the republicans live in they are still upset about rock 'n roll. Or perhaps they'll go the other way in an attempt to capture some of the youth vote, I would love to see Romney try to play a video game...

[Andrea Blackwell]

11:06 PM on 05/01/2012

No doubt he's got Pocket God on his iPad.

[l78lancer]

01:43 PM on 05/03/2012

Heeheehee...too funny.

[xiolableu01]

09:47 AM on 05/01/2012

Everyone knows Dance Central and Dance Central 2 are the best dance games.

[sincerelyus]

09:45 AM on 05/01/2012

That is what change looks like. The ability to recognize and the willingness to respond to the dynamics taking place within and without a culture. Way to go.

[AlPal3]

09:28 AM on 05/01/2012

Beautiful.

[AMERICABLESSGOD]

08:38 AM on 05/01/2012

You know, rapid thumb movement can burn lots of calories. It's good for the heart, too.

[Mr Planeman]

04:03 PM on 05/01/2012

Did you even read the article? This is about games that use motion sensing, as your body.

[gaydood]

08:12 AM on 05/01/2012

just dance!

just vote !!!!!

OBAMA 2012 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Point-Counterpoint]

07:54 AM on 05/01/2012

So let's see. We convince people that to spend more money on electronics as they are struggling to pay their bills. -or- we can convince them that by going outside and do things that are essentially free.

If they aren't doing the exercise now, what is the motivation to spend money to do the exercise? That you can do it from the privacy of your own home? People got out of shape in the privacy of their own home. Their kids got out of shape in the privacy of their own home.

[Mr Planeman]

04:09 PM on 05/01/2012

These days it's rare that one doesn't have a video game console in their house. Not to mention the PS Move or a pre-owned Wii is fairly inexpensive. When my sister bought her daughter a video game console, she bought her a Wii so bshe wouldn't be sitting around while playing her games, and trust me, my niece isn't out of shape.

[Point-Counterpoint]

06:18 PM on 05/01/2012

That is great and if you look around on the street a minority of kids in shape so good for your niece. Get them outside, away from the 'screen' and let them get some activity. Let them interact with more than a text and a video game.

And some of the point is that outside activity is essentially free!

[Marcin A Mazurek]

07:01 AM on 05/01/2012

Nice - It really is within our capabilities with all these movement controls to do something interesting. I'd like to see where this goes in the future.

[J Rupel]

04:25 AM on 05/01/2012

EA is going to honor him with a video game based on his presidency. You run in place while doing math problems. It's called Obama's Great Dividing Adventure '12.

[IslamicPacifist]

04:09 AM on 05/01/2012

He's just jealous of Ron Paul's videogame

[sgtriker55]

03:35 AM on 05/01/2012

this is why we need a real 9/11 investigation and more to much corruption, so we had a bush white wah of 9/11 kind of what they did to RFK -
'There definitely was another shooter': RFK assassination witness says FBI covered up fact there was a SECOND gunmanSirhan Sirhan was not only gunman, claims eyewitness Nina Rhodes-Hughes
'Heard 12 to 14 shots, more than the eight he could have fired from his gun'
FBI altered her account, and never called her to testify during trial
Sirhan contesting his shots killed Kennedy and now calling for review
Robert F Kennedy killed in Los Angeles Ambassador Hotel on June 5, 1968
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2137188/Robert-F-Kennedy-assassination-witness-says-FBI-covered-fact-SECOND-gunman.html

[Marcin A Mazurek]

07:00 AM on 05/01/2012

And the daily mail has absolutely no place in the world of real news.

[-swift]

09:05 AM on 05/01/2012

You copy/pasted to the wrong article.

[radiohd07]

02:56 AM on 05/01/2012

good call. Who wants to actually go outside? A game of baseball with people? and dirt? What if my son isn't picked till then end? That will hurt his esteem and I will have to up his anxiety meds... and my meds... and my dogs meds! Glad I have good insurance. If they could create a video game that was virtual tree climbing then I wouldn't have to put a helmet and knee pads and elbow pads and tie a pillow to Johnny's back every time he goes outside. You know how kids can climb trees and all. He might fall! He might get bit by a mosquito! I'm glad to hear Obama went to BEst Buy as opposed to a small business to purchase his games. That shows smarts. Those small businesses have to charge an arm and a leg for their products. I don't know why either. It's not like the we have turned into a nation that discourages small business and entrepreneurs with regulations and taxes imposed by big banks and businesses.

[time2talk]

03:27 AM on 05/01/2012

The good part about Wii dancing is you can do it inside when it's raining outside or after dark. You can even put down your beer and dance with him. You can buy it where ever you like. Some of those tunes are from back in the olden days when you were a teenager and weren't so crabby. You'll love it!

[radiohd07]

04:38 AM on 05/01/2012

Point taken. But my point missed. The fact that we are saying its accepting now to log video time as being a "substitute" for going outside and being active with something other than a virtual world is not in the best interest of the children and the parents. I know it's not what being "stated" but does it have to be? Sedentary lifestyles are already an issue, mostyl because of the parents being equally sedentary. This is just a scapegoat now. It's quite the political move to suddenly be backing a "major trade group, the Entertainment Software Association". Or is it the other way around. It is election time! To publicly say that if it helps get children off the couch is one thing but i think it would have been wiser to reitterate the importance of socializing and interacting with other children outside of a living room. Backing neighborhood YMCA programs and youth sports for children would be a good idea!. Of course they aren't a "major trade group" and don't have nearly the bank roll of business like the "Entertainment Software Association". Wii dance and virtual tennis are entertaining and engaging. I'm more of the Tiger Woods golf guy myself. But it's still a virtual world that shoudn't be seen as an appropriate substitute. I am 30 so my "old ways" aren't that out of touch. Just forgotten.