Dance Dance Revolution Exercise Study

krf writes "Gamasutra reports that researchers in West Virgina are doing a study on using DDR to fight childhood obesity." From the article: "The study, which is currently budgeted at $60,000, provides each of the selected 85 child participants with a game system, copy of the game, and dance pad."

Comments

McDonalds

[rbarreira]

Perhaps you american guys should focus on eating less garbage like McDonalds...

Re:McDonalds

[ZosX]

Perhaps you american guys should focus on eating less garbage like McDonalds...

I know this was modded as a troll (and it really is), but troll or not, it is true. Americans are some of the fattest people on the planet. Just go to a Walmart and take a rough percentage. Around here in fatland Pittsburgh, I usually average about 40-50% of people being overweight. Convieniently for them the local Walmarts all have McDonalds so they can fatten up after buying cheap crap that was made in china all the while being surrounded by the american flag. Remember, the Walmart logo is a bastardization of the flag with the red, white, and blue and the stars. Isn't the free market grand?

For the record, something like 1 in 5 or 2 in 5 kids are obese in the United States. Don't have the actual statistic, but it is somewhere between 20 and 25% if not worse already. The generations seem to increase in fat percentages.

Also, I used to be fat myself. I weight about 170 lbs on a good day and when I graduated high school I weighed 250 lbs. It took a good year to lose the weight, but after I did, I swore off ever eating at places like McDonalds. I'm now vegetarian (can't give up cheese), and I am probably 100x healthier than I would have been had I stayed with the heart attack diet.

You are what you eat.

Re:McDonalds

[rbarreira]

It wasn't intended as a troll, it was intended as advice. Unless you want your children to be more and more unhealthy, you should put McDonalds where it deserves to be...

Re:McDonalds

[Anonymous Coward]

I applaud your weight loss but being a classist snob asshole isn't good for your health either. Chill out a bit.

Re:McDonalds

[Anonymous Coward]

'It wasn't intended as a troll, it was intended as advice. Unless you want your children to be more and more unhealthy, you should put McDonalds where it deserves to be...'

...as a part of a balanced diet. There is good food there; just don't be an idiot and order super fries 8 times a day. However, if you don't like the place, just don't go there. You make yourself look like a twit when you preach about "garbage".

Re:McDonalds

[Meagermanx]

Man, I turned vegetarian almost 2 years ago, and it really does help keep your weight down.
I'm a sandwichhollic, and if you look at the fat content in a sandwich, it's all in the mayonaise, the cheese, and the meat.
Cut those out and you still have a mighty fine sandwich, and you cut out all the excess fat, while still filling up on the veggies.
I still stick a piece of cheese in though ;D

Re:McDonalds

[Meagermanx]

Most people have never heard of them. They're called "Vegetables". Wiki it.

Re:McDonalds

[Wooky_linuxer]

Dood, you americans are so fat because you insist on using that old imperial system. Weight yourself in IS units and you'll be all lighter faster than you can say "kilogram". An example? You say you weight 170 lbs, if you were using kg you'd be weighting only 77! ;)

Re:McDonalds

[Masami Eiri]

No... you've got a salad with abnormally large crutons...

Re:McDonalds

[Anonymous Coward]

I applaud your weight loss but being a classist snob asshole isn't good for your health either. Chill out a bit.

I don't see how you're getting classist snob asshole out of his post. He's only pointing out that Americans tend to be fatter, which is true. It all has to do with how cheap food in the US is compared to other parts of the world. We've subsidized the industry so much in the USA that food costs here are typically two-thirds to half of most other countries.

The problem isn't solely the cheap fast food industry. The problem partially lies with the people. I used to eat at McDonald's or Burger King nearly every day. I didn't become an obese unix/mac/windows sysadmin.

I don't eat at McDonald's or Burger King anymore, but I used to eat there when I was a student. It was the cheapest meal you could get. 99 cents for a Big Mac or a Whopper, whenever they had their promotion. I got two Big Macs or two whoppers, depending on who had the promotion at the time, usually with no fries and no drinks, which are the fillers that have the highest profit margin. Besides, it was cheaper than the burger, fries and drink combos. Sometimes I bought three if I was really hungry. If I pay money for a burger meal, I want a burger not fillers. The fries and drinks are the killers. They seem insubstantial, but they pack calories too, but when you can get two burgers for a cheaper price, well, why would you buy the combo meal.

I gained only 10 pounds during those years, I'm 170 pounds now, my all time heaviest has been 175, but then I was bicycling everywhere, so much of that went to my legs as muscles. That made it difficult to find pants that fit my legs until relaxed-fit pants came along. I still fit in my clothes from 8 years ago. I sank in the pool even with a lung full of air. When you excercise so much, you need all that energy. Even junk food works, since your body converts it quickly. I could probably lose 5 pounds and be more fit.

This just goes to show that it wasn't all McDonald's or Burger King's fault for getting people getting fat. I ate it everyday for several years and didn't get fat. If you're going to eat there, you don't always need the Fries and Sodas. Drink some water. It's healthier.

I only ate there because I was a student. I had very little extra money. For a little over two dollars per meal, after taxes, I was able get food into me.

As I've gotten older, and gotten a better job, I've slowly stopped eating there. There are tastier alternatives, and I have more cash to spend. However, in a pinch, when I was sent on site, I'd still go if I needed a quick bite and didn't know my way around a new town. I've also stopped eating so much food and don't order gigantic meals. When you're not exercising so much, you don't need the extra calories.

This is something that many people don't seem to understand. Don't eat so much if you really aren't hungry. It's not all their fault. Their parents trained them to force food down. (see http://www.pbs.org/saf/1110/resources/transcript.h tm#3) They'll need to retrain themselves to stop when they realize they're full. Your parents likely told you that there were starving children in other parts of the world so you shouldn't waste your food. You can't feed the rest of the world with your leftovers and you can't feed them if you eat it all either.

My kids don't finish everything on their plates. We don't force them to overeat. We serve smaller portions so food isn't wasted. The meager amount of leftovers get ground up and placed in our compost, so we aren't really wasting them.

Re:McDonalds

[jardun]

I think the problem is likely deeper than eating habits and is really a deep-rooted lack of self-control. The American culture seems to be falling into a vicious cycle of self-indulgence. The more you get, the more you want, whether it's food, television, larger vehicles, you name it. (I am an American, by the way, so I'm ciritquing from the inside)

Re:McDonalds

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing about macdonalds foods has anything to do with balance apart from balance sheets at the accountants.

You make yourself look like a shill and an utter twit when you defend this shit. Seriously.

Re:McDonalds

[Anonymous Coward]

The k stands for thousand, you unamerican clod !

77000 vs 170, no contest.

Re:McDonalds

[mink]

I applaud your healthy eating habits, but would like to add that you should add some protein in, get some nicely flavored tofu or mushrooms.

For meat eaters who want to do better then fast food, there are a few meats available that are low to no fat. Same goes for cheese. Look into healthy alternatives to things you already eat.

Greedy pigs.

[kryogen1x]

From TFA:

"Obesity claims last year cost us $77 million. We have to curtail those costs."

It's just lovely how the insurance industry is more concerned with making money than they are with the physical welfare of children.

Re:Greedy pigs.

[Anonymous Coward]

yes but mcdonalds makes billions, we should offset the cost of insurance by taking part of mcdonalds profits so they don't have to suffer so.

Re:Greedy pigs.

[avalys]

If a company's first priority wasn't making money, then its other priorities would be irrelevant, because the company would go bankrupt and cease to exist.

Like it or not, money is what drives the world, and everyone who wants to have any effect on the world needs money to do it.

Re:Greedy pigs.

[Temporal]

Dude... That's the whole point of capitalism. It's working as designed.

Are you concerned about the physical welfare of children? How much money have you spent trying to improve it?

Re:Greedy pigs.

[rbarreira]

Are you concerned about the physical welfare of children? How much money have you spent trying to improve it?

Do you mean that no-one spends money to improve the physical welfare of kids? Starting with parents who make an effort in giving them good food, and ending in many other places...

Re:Greedy pigs.

[Temporal]

I'm saying that it's unreasonable to call random third parties greedy for not wanting to help obese kids simply out of the goodness of their hearts. Parents are not random third parties.

Re:Greedy pigs.

[E_elven]

That is not true. A company does not need to make money to stay in business, as long as they are not losing it either.

Re:Greedy pigs.

[FLEB]

Although, unless the company has zero expendetures(sp?), the same processes and ideas apply in order to break even and turn a profit.

Unless, of course, it's a scam that's made to be run into the ground, or a front for cooking books and diverting cashflow. Then it's a success even if it loses.

(Aaaand... Cue the real economist/accountant/businessperson to hand me my rhetorical ass...)

Re:Greedy pigs.

[Bastian]

Just because something is working as designed doesn't mean it's working toward the welfare of the population.

From a purely capitalist perspective, a night at home with my family is practically useless. Much better for me to forget them and work late ($) and then drive ($) to a bar, get drunk ($$), go pick up a hooker ($$$), and start driving to a hotel, but hit another car on the way, killing the hooker ($$$), and putting a family of four in the emergency room ($$$$$$$), and a few of them in the ICU ($$$$$$$$$$$$$$). Instead of pushing a few bucks for dinner at home through the economy, I'd be increasing the U.S. economy's GDP by hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The means of capitalism may be the least of a set of evils, but its core values and the culture it fosters are completely boneheaded. I'd rather be content, healthy, and self-actualizing than rich, thank you very much.

Re:Greedy pigs.

[Jerf]

With all due respect, that's not capitalism. Everything you did after hitting the other car suffers from the "broken window fallacy" (google it) and did not benefit the economy; on the whole you did great damage, and capitalism did what it could to minimize that damage.

Under capitalism, you destroyed (most likely) two cars, took a human life (and yes, even under capitalism that's a bad thing; you have prevented that human from ever producing value of any kind whatsoever), and consumed many, many resources put to better use than medical care. (Again, see "broken window fallacy".)

Capitalism minimizes that damage by trying to efficiently utilize resources to the repair, although the medical system is pretty broken in that regard right now.

If you're going to hate it, make sure you understand what it is, not a caricature of it. I can't explain it in a Slashdot post, but for starters you need to understand the idea of capital; it isn't the primary component of the word for show. You destroyed a lot of capital, of all kinds, in your example, for no gain at all. Capitalism doesn't promote that.

Capitalism has problems, but that is not where they lie.

Re:Greedy pigs.

[LWATCDR]

"It's just lovely how the insurance industry is more concerned with making money than they are with the physical welfare of children."
Actually they are in concerned with the physical welfare of children because it cost them money. If you want to be upset about something save your venom for Coke, Pepsi, KFC, Burgerking, and McDonalds. They really fit the your statement.

Re:Greedy pigs.

[jardun]

I've read the rebuttal of the parent already, but I must say I enjoyed that post if nothing but for the creativity. =)

Re:Greedy pigs.

[mOdQuArK!]

If a company's first priority wasn't making money, then its other priorities would be irrelevant, because the company would go bankrupt and cease to exist.

From the society's point of view, if the company does more damage to the society than it provides benefit, then it might be necessary for the society to make SURE that the company ceases to exist.

Interesting Concept

[kyle90]

It's too bad though, that kids have to be enticed with video games in order to become active. Just go outside! It's like a video game, except with better graphics (and when you die, you really die).

Re:Interesting Concept

[Anonymous Coward]

(and when you die, you really die)

And that's a good thing? Besides; the story sucks, the gameplay is boring and repeditive, and the massively-multiplayer version is filled with griefers.

Re:Interesting Concept

[Temporal]

I play DDR and bike (outside!) regularly. DDR is way more fun.

Re:Interesting Concept

[cgenman]

Kids have to be enticed with activities to become active. "Just go outside" was never about just going outside. It was about going down to the lake, building forts, catching frogs, seeing how far you could throw broken glass, spitting on passing cars, etc. But now "outside" is dangerous. "The lake is toxic." "The glass is dangerous." "That dirt will make you sick." "The drivers are going to run you over."

We've raised a generation of kids terrified of going outside. Of course they don't know what to do when out there: nothing is safe. They don't go outside because there is nothing they can do out there.

Ironically, dancing has also gotten a bad name in the past 20 years. While 100 years ago it was common to send your kids off to dance class, now dancing generally means drugs and hedonism and, well, fun things to protect your kids from.

Re:Interesting Concept

[Anonymous Coward]

Care bears don't like permadeath! Pfft! Where's the fun if there is no risk of death?

Re:Interesting Concept

[Impotent_Emperor]

Back in my day, my mother kicked us kids out of the house to get some "god damned peace and quite".

So, the trick is for parents to have more than one child. Said children will fight over limited resources (television, Nintendo, Legos, etc.). At which point one or both parents will become pissed off. The children will then be kicked out of the house and left to their own devices. (In our case, it was playing baseball except with apples from a nearby tree. It was messy.)

Re:Interesting Concept

[nunchux]

"Going outside" isn't always an option. It's been twelve years since I was a pre-teen, but I remember well growing up in a pretty typical suburban housing development. There was no nature to explore, only endless fenced-off bacyards. For that matter there was no open space to gather on to play football or soccer (the yards were also very small, the best we could do was play basketball on the driveway.) If you wanted to play a sport other than driveway basketball you had to do it at school or join a regulated soccer or softball league. We weren't allowed to ride bikes much further than a friend's house two or three streets over because we were surrounded by heavily trafficked streets (double or triple lanes with cars whizzing by at 45 mph.) The development had a pool and tennis courts, but minors had to be accompanied by an adult to use them.

The "Leave it to Beaver" days are over and for kids in urban and heavily congested suburban areas "playing outside" isn't always an option. The popularity of video games isn't necessarily a cause of this-- I see it as a side effect instead. And if kids are going to while away the after school hours gathered around the Playstation, it would be nice if they got some exercise doing it.

Re:Interesting Concept

[NanoGator]

"It's too bad though, that kids have to be enticed with video games in order to become active."

Exercise the body, or exercise the mind. It's hard to do both.

Re:Interesting Concept

[ElVaquero]

massively-multiplayer version is filled with griefers. too many gold farmers..

Re:Interesting Concept

[ABaumann]

Man. That sounds like playing WoW but without the crappy servers.

Re:Interesting Concept

[jvalenzu]

The problem is a lack of open space, not a widespread neurosis. Suburban sprawl and track homes have overtaken most of the open space I played on as a kid, and the green slices of golf-like grass they set up as play areas are a poor substitute.

Re:Interesting Concept

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't work now. They buy a TV for each child.

Re:Interesting Concept

[wviperw]

interesting...

[earmarked]

With that budget...

[Spamicles]

...you could just pay for the lipo.

More informative articles:

[RotJ]

Perhaps the link should have pointed to the original AP article:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=51 4&e=8&u=/ap/20050404/ap_on_he_me/fit_dancing_away_ obesity
or
http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/diet.fitness/04/04/ dancing.away.obesity.ap/index.html?section=cnn_lat est

instead of Gamasutra's brief synopsis.

I love that kid's "tough guys wear pink" t-shirt, BTW. He's no wuss, like that StarWarsKid is.

Re:More informative articles:

[CamelToes]

What's up with that fat kid, K.D. Jones being in TWO articles on TWO different web pages (Yahoo! and CNN) with TWO different pictures of him? Instant celebrity?

Either Konami hires this kid as their next spokesman for DDR or they lose an opportunity to reach out to other fat kids that wear shirts that say "only tough guys wear pink" and play DDR ...

Limiting obesity

[SunFan]

One way to limit obesity is to cut back on entertainment, altogether. There are so many time sinks out there from TV to videogames to reading Slashdot, that dispensing with many of them is essential to getting by in life.

Re:Limiting obesity

[superpulpsicle]

If you want to get healthy and save time, just get on a treadmill. There is no exercise harder than running 30 minutes straight. DDR doesn't remotely compare.

Re:Limiting obesity

[Anonymous Coward]

If you set it to the max, training with a cross-trainer can be a lot harder. Anyway, set the treadmill at about 9mph and you'll burn close to 600kcal in half an hour.

This could start a trend

[AtariAmarok]

Exercise inspired by videogames. Imagine if they took FIFA Soccer for PS2 and made a real sport out of it! Could work? Sounds a lot more likely than someone turning EA's "ice hockey" game NHL-2005 into an actual pro sport that someone plays on real ice.

Re:This could start a trend

[Meagermanx]

I would rather see people run around with shoulder-mounted rocket launchers blast the hell out of each other, actually. Why do you choose the lame games to turn into sports?

Re:This could start a trend

[muel]

http://www.ymca.org

Re:This could start a trend

[tyndyll]

Grand Theft Auto

Street Fighter

I'm not sure this a trend I want to be a part of

Re:This could start a trend

[Perdo]

Isn't EA's NHL-2005 dream team... anyone playing in the NHL at all?

Pointless.

[Seumas]

DDR requires activity. Movement. Exercise. It's well established that activity and exercise helps you be fit and lose weight. They may as well be doing a study to find out of push-ups help you keep fit or if people who play a lot of basketball tend to be in better shape and lose weight.

I saw an article the other day where a chubby kid (I think he was 140lb or more at the age of 12) said that "I can play basketball better now that I've lost 10 pounds with this thing". Um... I don't follow. If you're playing basketball, aren't you already active?

Re:Pointless.

[faloi]

If you're playing basketball, aren't you already active?

Not necessarily. It doesn't take a lot of effort to sorta jog after people and hope things happen. I played soccer on an intramural league, and saw plenty of people that managed to prevent actual calorie usage. And a few people that seemed to be pretty active, but it must've been only during the one game a week judging by their physique. If he's playing basketball for an hour every Saturday in a YMCA league, he might not be doing much.

Re:Pointless.

[Temporal]

The problem is not figuring out what the kids need to do. They need to exercise. The problem is figuring out how to make them do it. Most exercise is boring, therefore kids don't do it. DDR is fun. Is it fun enough that your obese kid will actually play it enough to lose weight? Let's find out!

Re:Pointless.

[Anonymous Coward]

Did he say he played basketball regularly, or that he plays it right? To kids, just standing in one place throwing a ball in a hoop can be "playing basketball". DDR is going to be more exersize than that.

Re:Pointless.

[Meagermanx]

And you can just shoot hoops in basketball, and not really run after the ball much. If you are actually playing games at the park, or wherever, regularly, and not just going to practice and shooting freethrows for half an hour, you will get skinny fast.

Re:Pointless.

[Anonymous Coward]

Like any video game, DDR makes you forget everything else that's going on, even the fact that the exercise can get fairly strenuous.

Thus, it makes the first painful steps to conditioning oneself a hell of a lot easier.

Re:Pointless.

[Voxus]

It's fun enough that a number of my friends use it as a fitness program.

Re:Pointless.

[American AC in Paris]

Most exercise is boring, therefore kids don't do it.

Gah! Most exercise is incredibly fun! The problem is that we've gone and transformed our perception of "exercise" from running around, jumping, dodging, throwing things, rolling around in the dirt and climbing trees into getting on a freakin' treadmill in a stuffy room and running in place for thirty minutes. Wheeeeee...

Exercise is supposed to be incredibly fun. Somehow, though, we've managed to make it one of the most monotonous, sterile, and mundane activities out there...

Re:Pointless.

[Shalda]

DDR is fun if you've never done it before. After a while, kids lose interest. You need a whole long series of excercise oriented video games. Yeah, you could send the kid down to the nearest park to play soccer with his friends or something. On the other hand, if it were that easy, the kid wouldn't be a lardass to begin with. The video games provide an interactiveness and conveniance that might not otherwise be available. But like I said earlier, you need to have the next great thing ready for when DDR loses its appeal.

Re:Pointless.

[dmneoblade]

Well, it worked for me.
I started playing DDR a little over a year ago.
I dropped from 230 to 200 in a year.
DDR was the only thing I changed.

Re:Pointless.

[Teppy]

Actually, no. I have one of the shortest attention spans for exercise of anyone on the planet. My basement is a graveyard of sports equipment. A year ago I started doing DDR, and I'm as much of a fanatic as ever.

I built a "studio" in a vacant office next to mine, so I can take a few dancing breaks during the day. I can't see getting sick of DDR any more that I might "get sick of" music itself.

$60,000? Some1 needs to tell these guys about ebay

[Anonymous Coward]

ps2: about $100 ddr + mat: $30 - $40 140 x 85 = $11,900

DDR, Not Just a Cheap Diet Anymore!

[gilmet]

Sincerely, I hope this fight childhood obesity campaign turns into a genuine ddr craze, because I've been waiting for a 9th mix forever. Unfortunately, I have this looming fear that if and when another mix is finally released, it'll be some kind of sweatin' to the oldies from hell.

Just remember, ddr is a cool game... PERIOD. It's not just a way to lose weight.

Re:DDR, Not Just a Cheap Diet Anymore!

[Anonymous Coward]

a ps2 version of in the groove is being developed, which should turn out to be good, if the arcade machine was any indicator

and Jerry Lewis is a genius !!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

''What a retart- The French have best bread in world''

Rock-hard, way too chewy, tasteless, and you can hit home runs with it. What is there not to like about French Bread?

Re:and Jerry Lewis is a genius !!!!

[gimpynerd]

How can something be rock-hard and way too chewy at the same time?

Weight Management

[RotJ]

I found that the best way to keep myself from getting fat from junk food is to not buy junk food. That way, if I find myself hungry at midnight, I'll just have to eat a damn apple or something. Also, the trick to not buying junk food is to always go to the grocery store with a full stomach.

even worse

[Anonymous Coward]

'' the story sucks, the gameplay is boring and repeditive, and the massively-multiplayer version is filled with griefers. ''

Even worse, you are stuck with this kind of joystick that has no buttons, and you can't trade it in for a larger one, no matter how many emails tell you you can do this.

Re:even worse

[yasth]

yeah the unimplemented feature list is way too long.

They said there would be flying cars, but nope nothing real.

They said we would have robots (think a mule char), nope not implemented yet.

They say the leveling treadmill would get easier, and you'd have to work less, but they made it harder, and took away options for breaks. (I mean power players are up there in the 100 hours a week category, and just about everyone puts in 40-50 I mean can you cuddle up to your non RL girlfriend when you put in that many hours?)

They claimed that there would be a massive battle between powers bent on taking over the world (and they really need the action), but they dropped the whole thing lately. I mean they do this a lot with events promoting then cancelling. They didn't even offer refunds for all those who had bought weapons and bunkers for thier promised war.

The promotional material (and that is another thing there is promotional material inside the game) all promises sex and power, but they never deliver, you can buy a car (sort of a horse) that you saved up a year for, and the most you get is a "nice car" from the NPCs.

Also the NPCs' AI just sucks. You go to a store, and it seems like half the time they didn't even bother to write proper greetings, and what greetings they do have well the voice talent must have just been to the dentist because they mumble a lot. They don't even have facial expressions really.

The good news is there is a patch coming out. "Revelations" is what they call it, but the good part is only for the evil chars. If you tried to play a paladin or whatever, you get to see the begining, and then you are whisked away for the really fun part.

Re:even worse

[gimpynerd]

That's really awesome man! OK I'm done I just needed to say that.

In The Groove

[tepples]

because I've been waiting for a 9th mix forever.

9th Mix is here. Contact your arcade operator, or buy the forthcoming version for PlayStation 2 (NTSC U/C).

Just remember, ddr is a cool game... PERIOD.

More than a cool game, it is The legend. (period)

Re:In The Groove

[Headcase88]

Roxor did a really good job with this. I can't wait until the PS2 version. Combine with Cobalt Flux for extremely expensive but awesome experience.

Re:In The Groove

[kn0tw0rk]

If it were not a US only release it might be good, but I've given up trying to get any of the dancing games in australia because they never release any here. And I'm not going to get my ps2 modded just so I can import the US games. I've gone instead with stepmania on the pc and used a decent usb to ps2 controller. And I don't have to wait for the 9th mix of DDR as there is a scene thats creating new mixes for download. Or if I get inspired I can make up my own from songs of my choosing. I find it good fun (even though my friends make fun of my new obsession), having gotten my sister and her kids interested in it.

Re:In The Groove

[Anonymous Coward]

There are several In The Groove arcade games in Australia -- check www.itgfreak.com for machine locations!

Re:$60,000? Some1 needs to tell these guys about e

[Halcyonandon]

Hey, you're forgetting... they've gotta fund some grad students, too.

Re:$60,000? Some1 needs to tell these guys about e

[Temporal]

The pad seen in the photo (in this article) appears to be the Red Octane Ignition. Or, at least, it looks identical to the ones my sister has. Anyway, they cost something like $110 each, not including game. That's still only going to come to $20k or so, but I'm sure a good chunk of the money goes to paying the researchers, paying for medical exams to monitor progress, etc.

$30 pads do not make for a good gaming experience.

Re:$60,000? Some1 needs to tell these guys about e

[Anonymous Coward]

I was duped by Red Octane myself......BUT......some of my friends later found sources for equivalent pads that cost only $20. We have compared the pads side-by-side, and there is no difference even if you're playing 10 footers - they both have inserts and can be relied on not to slip or tear for a very long time, which is all you can ask of soft pads.

I have a Cobalt Flux now.

I sure hope they're giving them a good metal pad

[MarcoAtWork]

otherwise I doubt the kids will play enough for the study to get any sort of meaningful results.

Re:I sure hope they're giving them a good metal pa

[Headcase88]

Yeah, that's the problem with DDR. At the very least you need a RedOctane Ignition or it's just not fun, even for beginners (at least IMO). It's an expensive habit, but has lots of positive reuslts.

Two extreme views in the article

[Max_Wells_SH]

FTA:

"It's a lot of fun," Joyce Jones said. "But I can only do it about two times for every four times he does."

Exactly how fat is she that her 250 lb son has twice the energy she does? Okay okay, maybe she's just old.

In West Virginia, Robrietta Lambert, a physical education teacher at Franklin Elementary in Pendleton County, believes she already knows what all the studies will find. She has been using the video game in her classes since last fall.

"It improves cardiovascular health as well as eye-hand coordination," Lambert said.

That is one fucking hardcore teacher--doesn't the game get hard enough already using your feet? I've always wanted to try out DDR (in private), but the top floor of an apartment I want to stay in is not conducive to that; though I wonder how much good Donkey Kong Jungle Beat does me?

Re:Two extreme views in the article

[bVork]

...I wonder how much good Donkey Kong Jungle Beat does me?

That'll improve endurance for a certain recreational activity. One which is quite popular with Slashdotters...

Re:Two extreme views in the article

[Anonymous Coward]

The US PS2 version of DDR Extreme has a few additional modes which require the EyeToy. Along with a few extraneous mini-games, you can either replace the foot arrows with hand arrows or play with both. I haven't tried it yet, but the latter mode sounds kinda neat though probably hard as hell on anything above Standard.

As far as "in private" goes, I sympathize. However the craze is mostly dead where I live; it may be the same where you are. I go to the arcade section of a local redneck "entertainment center" (seriously, it's like a Chuck E' Cheese's for wifebeaters) which is practically abandoned nowadays. A lot of places bought the machines to cash in on the craze and now just leave them running.

Re:Two extreme views in the article

[Max_Wells_SH]

You'd think I'd be better at the game then.

Re:McDonalds - math is fun

[LordEd]

Consider the following...

A single pack of large fries contains 17.5g of fat. If we assume a store will sell 100 packs of large fries, that is 1750g, or 3.85 lbs of fat.

In 1 week, the store puts out 27 lbs of fat.
In 1 year, the store puts out 1404 lbs of fat.

There are over 12,000 mcdonads in the US

Assuming each store sells an average 100 packs of large fries, 12,000 mcdonalds stores put out 16,848,000 lbs of fat.

Assuming the same number of sales in big macs (21.5g). That translates to 20,660,640 lbs of fat in 1 year.

I can have a decent sized sandwich with cheese at about the 10g range. Replacing a burger/fry lunch with that would be only 9,609,600 lbs of fat, or a savings of 27,899,040 lbs of fat from being eaten.

Its almost sickening thinking about it.

why do they call this research?

[Dr.Opveter]

obese child + no exercise = obese child
obese child + no exercise + bad food = increasingly obese child

so, start a healthy diet and you'll see improvement. On top of that please exercise regularly and you'll see dramatic improvement. What's a way to get non active kids raised on fast food and tv dinners back on track? Make exercise fun, make eating healthy food attractive.

disclaimer: i might be wrong; not all obese kids are on a bad diet without exercise, some kids are born big.

Have you ever tried to eat healthy?

[rsilvergun]

I am right now, and it's hard. I don't mean like, "I really want a cheeseburger" hard, I mean like, how the hell do I avoid trans-fats (i.e. Hydrogenated Oils)? How the heck do I afford 5 servings of fresh vegetables/day if I don't have the time to prepare bulk and I can't afford the premade stuff. Americans aren't fat for just any old reason. We really are getting the stuff cramed down are throats. Junk food's not just cheaper, it's more profitable. Food made with Hydrogenated Oils costs a fraction to make than with butter or traditional oils, and lasts up to 18 times longer on the shelf.

I'm an out of work computer tech, and my budgets gone to hell. I can eat fast food for $20/week. No matter how I run the numbers, I can't eat truely healthy for less than $100/week. This assumes I cook everything myself. Remember, eating healthier isn't just more expensive per meal, it means eating more and more often. 2 Big Macs'll get you through the day, if only digesting the fat calories. That doesn't work with fish and vegetables.

I'm not saying we're blameless. Part of the problem is all the fat asses out there eat the junk. Economies of scale and what not. But once again take hydrogenated oils. What do you suppose are the odds, given the enormous profitability they represent, of Americans getting clued in on just how bad they are for you?

Anyway, yeah, we're a bunch of fat bastards. But it's not as easy to stop being a fat bastard in America as you think.

Re:Have you ever tried to eat healthy?

[Voxus]

No need to eat perfectly healthy food; just cook some of it yourself. A nice, big pasta meal with cheese sauce costs only a few dollars, yet can feed four in one sitting (or one for a day).

I dunno where you are that you can eat McDonald's for $20/wk. I can eat Wendy's for about that, though. But sandwiches and other things I made myself are even easier on my budget. You just don't want to overindulge and snack yourself (or at least your money) to death.

Re:Have you ever tried to eat healthy?

[Arkaein]

I can eat fast food for $20/week. No matter how I run the numbers, I can't eat truely healthy for less than $100/week.

Your kidding right? My food budget is about $50-$60 per week, and it could probably be less if I cooked more from scratch (I do cook most of my own food, but there are usually a few shortcuts compared to completely from scratch). I eat a lot of salads, which are healthy and not expensive. I eat more chicken than beef, which is both a bit healthier and fairly inexpensive.

Maybe that's not that much less than $100, but there's also no way you get by on $20. 2 Big Macs per day? That's what, $7 for the value meals and at least $4 just for the burgers? Already at about $30 per wekk or more.

In any case, I think that your health (not to mention the pleasure of eating real food instead of crap) is worh an extra few bucks a day. If not, then your budget likely needs some prioritizing, as you probably waste more money elsewhere (not because you specifically can't budget, but because almost everyone has some waste).

Re:Have you ever tried to eat healthy?

[Anonymous Coward]

> I can eat fast food for $20/week. No matter how I run the numbers, I
> can't eat truely healthy for less than $100/week.

Healthy groceries for myself, the wife and the baby cost $100CDN/week.

You're doing something very wrong.

You can buy a big bag of apples for almost nothing. They're practically giving away potatos. A 10lb bag of rice would last a single guy 6 months.

Re:Have you ever tried to eat healthy?

[mzs]

I pulled it off. After I finished with uni and did not have a real job yet, I got by on 4 'servings' of TacoBell a day. A serving was one of bean burrito, soft taco, or hard taco. I believe that back then the prices were some combination of 49, 59, and 69 cents each for those items. I also bought really cheap three liter bottles of cola, Shasta if I remember correctly, at I think 59 cents back then. With the right amount of free water and sneaking free food and soft drinks from faculty talks and the like I was able to pull through at under $20 per week. I remember because that was my budget for food.

Now I have to admit that that was a crazy way to live and I do not recommend it to anyone, but honestly onions, green bell peppers, potatoes, rice, noodles, ramen, and frozen chicken were very inexpensive as well. When I got a real job and was still single I was able to live on that and the price was not all the worse. Definitely not $100/wk. Certainly it was worse in CA than IL but still not $100/wk...

Re:Have you ever tried to eat healthy?

[gimpynerd]

Wendy's is more expernsive than McDonald's...

Re:Have you ever tried to eat healthy?

[Voxus]

That depends on what you're comparing. I find that ordering a junior bacon with everything at Wendy's is more economical than a generiburger at McDonald's for the same price. But chicken sandwiches are cheaper at Micky-D's.

Re:Have you ever tried to eat healthy?

[bitingduck]

As other sibling posters have pointed out, you can eat fairly well and healthy for cheap. I used to make a pot of spaghetti sauce (4 qts) once a week, and eat pasta for dinner all week. It's very cheap, and very good. I even did meatballs (these days I used turkey) that are about half breadcrumb by volume, with an egg to hold it together. Pasta is really cheap, and a pot of sauce is cheap to make and lasts a week.

Even ramen can be part of a healthy diet-- I just took a look at a packet, and it's about 190 kCal/pack, with 70 of those from fat. If you add vegetables (fresh or frozen) you can rapidly get the amount of fat to less than 30% of the calories. Two packs of ramen plus a couple cups of chopped vegetables is a meal, and cheap. Just use only one packet of the salty flavoring unless you need the salt for some reason.

Bread is cheap to make, and not that hard. It's not even time intensive, but you have to be there when it wants you to do stuff to it. If you make sourdough (which tastes better anyway) you don't even need yeast. Sourdough starter can be made from a bit of milk and yogurt, or even just by leaving some moist flour out for a few days. Sourdough bread is made from flour, water, starter, and salt, all of which are really cheap.

Rice and beans of various forms are also extremely cheap, and can be really good. Around here a 25lb bag of good jasmine rice is about $10, and will last a long time (just keep it dry and away from mice). Pinto beans are cheap, even already prepared, lentils are also really cheap, easy to cook, and go great over rice.

One of the keys to making it all taste good is the right spices and herbs. Garlic is important (and cheap), onions are cheap, cumin, basil, oregano, chili powder, and a few other spices can be cheap if you buy them in bulk at a coop or in the cheap bags that are usually hidden away from the jars of expensive spices. Ethnic stores that mostly serve your local immigrant population often have good produce and spices for much less than at the chain groceries.

None of it has to take a lot of time-- I work full time (or more), have pets to take care of, have some semblance of a social life occasionally, exercise way more than your average person, and still manage to make most of my food from almost scratch (I don't bake bread or make my own tortillas or noodles form scratch), and do it pretty cheap. I probably spend less than 20 minutes preparing most meals.

Re:Have you ever tried to eat healthy?

[mink]

Switch to wendys. The chili isn't that bad for you, they have salads for fairly cheap, and they have non deep fried chicken sandwiches.

It's still fast food, but better on you then 2 big macs.

Why just kids?

[jago25_98]

If you lived near me, there was a field closeby and I wanted a game of football, I bet you wouldn't.

Nobody I know wants to do that anymore. They'd rather get drunk. Instead I have to go swimming, surfing and so on.

international study conducted at Uni Tampere

[Anonymous Coward]

If you play the games, take half an hour and complete the questionnaire.

http://www.cs.uta.fi/~johanna/DDRS/

This follows just after the 2nd annual European Cup in Norway, hosted at world's biggest computer party, The Gathering. Hm, no /. report about it this year. Just look at some photos, then: .nl, .pl, .be.

/me waves hello to Tepples

Re:$60,000? Some1 needs to tell these guys about e

[HTL2001]

if you want to be educational too, you can have them build thier own for the computer (stepmania)

I did this... the design is simply 4 metal sheets on a plywood base, wires running to each, and 4 transistors to detect foot presses. you need to be holding a wire, pluged into the wall, but it only cost me $10 to build and its way better than anything else i've tried
currently working on using a tone decoder, so you could just have something strapped to your wrist instead of holding a wire

it connects via parallel port using PPjoy, which can be a bitch. laptops i've tried it on tend to poll the pins i'm using to communicate after i've added the pad (just circutry behaves fine)

better player=less excercise?

[PjSunray]

First things first: I still suck at DDR. Not as much as I used to, but yes, I got no riddim (sic).

What I noticed in the process of going from inept to bad, is that when I first started playing I was jumping all over the place. However, after actually watching other folks play, I realized that better players try to minimize their movements...things like the now obvious "leave your feet on a pad after hitting it".

Perhaps it's different as you actually progress into higher skill levels, but I'm wondering if in general better players actually get less excercise than crappy players, because they know the routines, know the shortcuts, etc.

Re:better player=less excercise?

[ureshii_akuma]

Actually, better player=higher difficulty=more exercise. Try any song on Heavy. Trust me, you will mover more than you ever did on light ^_^

Re:better player=less excercise?

[FreyarHunter]

Hell, I can't even do Paranoia (DDR USA) on Standard mode.... It's INSANE!

Re:better player=less excercise?

[Reapy]

I was worried for a bit about this, then I moved to standard mode and woah boy. I actually think going from light to standard is too much of a difficulty increase!

Before on beginner and light I could play for an hour or two before I needed to stop. I just started doing standard songs and I'm pretty much sweaty and out of breath after 5 songs. (Never been in good shape).

On the beginner setting they give you a beat inbetween every step unless you are repeating the same arrow. This givs you time to step to the arrow then step to the middle. Once you learn to keep your feet on the pad its pretty boring and you are barely moving (you've cut down half the movements).

On light you have to keep your feet on the arrows or you wont be able to keep up, but there still isnt anything too hard.

When you get to standard, they throw all the half notes in there. There are like 2x the amount of arrows there used to be. You HAVE to keep your movement down or you just aren't going to be able to hit the arrows.

I kind of havent been playing as much since the light is a little boring for me but with the standard i can't play the game long enough to learn how to do the steps right. It's sort of a junky inbetween, but i still make an effort to pull it out though and give the songs i like a try on standard.

But yeah the game has been great. I sit on my ass all day at work, adn about the only active thing I do is 6 man volleyball once a week. There isn't much running involved in that. The only time i find myself working hard is when i'm middle and it's a long point.

So the ddr pad gets my heart rate up more then once a week, and on top of it has made me a better dancer. I was at a wedding recently and people were giving me complaments on my dancing. I'd been to other weddings with the same people before and they havent mentioned anything in the past about my sad attempts to move around, so i'm going to go out on a limb and accept the complaments.

So of coarse the game is good, it's a great way to be active while having fun. Not a lot of exercises that you can do on your own are like that.

Re:better player=less excercise?

[Rocketman574]

Oh, don't worry. Once you get to songs on heavy, you'll get quite a workout.

When they do the survey, they really should also track what difficulty the players are playing at and how good they're getting, because at low levels, it's not a very good workout unless you play for a really long time.

Re:better player=less excercise?

[tepp]

Watch someone play Max 3000.

It's one of the hardest songs to beat (10 footer), and most people end up loosing just because they can't keep up with the steps :)

To answer your question: the more efficent people get, the harder and more notes a song has. So even if you are super efficent, there's always a song with an insane number of steps that makes you gasp for breath.

Re:better player=less excercise?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, it is true that as people get better, they play more efficiently. However, people who play very efficiently just play for longer. I am an advanced player by most standards (can pass all songs on heavy). I move my legs as little as possible. However, for example, the last time I played I played for 5 hours with little to no break between games (note: in an arcade). 5 hours on heavy is alot, even if you conserve enregy by several methods.

Re:better player=less excercise?

[bitingduck]

I'm wondering if in general better players actually get less excercise than crappy players

"It doesn't get any easier, you just go faster"- Greg Lemond, three time Tour de France winner.

Most sports or exercise things are like that-- as you get better, you get more efficient so that things that were hard before are easy and take very little energy. The catch is that you do harder and harder things, often without realizing it. When you first start out with anything, you end up totally thrashed after an hour because you're not very skilled and are really inefficient. After you've been doing it a long time you end up totally thrashed after an hour because you're skilled enough to enjoy it at a pace (and energy consumption level) that would have killed you when you started.

DDR

[Sirfrummel]

DDR was the sole reason why I bought my PS2. I do have a few other games (Mercenaries, Time Splitters 3...) but DDR is what keeps my PS2 from getting dusty. DDR would also sit on my Top 3 favorite games list, right up there with Nethack and Goldeneye64.

DDR available on Xbox?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone know if DDR (or something like it) is available for the xbox? The wife's been on at me to get it for her for ages, but I could never find it.

Could be a good excuse to buy a PS2, I guess.

Re:DDR available on Xbox?

[Anonymous Coward]

Duh, why am I asking you guys, when google knows all.

Re:DDR available on Xbox?

[tepp]

Ultramix and Ultramix 2.

I prefer Ultramix 2. It's got better graphics, and the songs are just - well - more fun. IMHO. I love "tough enough" by vanilla ninja, and "in your eyes". Now Ultramix 1 has "shiny disco balls" which is also fun.... but not as fun as tough enough.

Buy a good pad. The cheap one that you get bundled in with it dies so fast. Mine gives phantom down and side arrows when nobody is standing on it, and sometimes the up won't register. So I have to work twice as hard to get a decent score. I really need to invest in a new pad, but only RedOctane makes a pad that works on the xbox. The best pad ever, the Cold Fusion pad, only works on the PS2. :(

Re:DDR available on Xbox?

[SanityInAnarchy]

Got a PC?

even has a linux port.

How about cut the fries and skip the sugary drinks

[TheLink]

Eat the burger, skip the fizzy sugar water AND if possible skip the fries?

My bet is the sugar water + fries is the really unhealthy part. Sure you might need to add another burger in order to feel satisfied, but that'll be at most 40/week, and it should be healthier.

Sure the bread is refined flour, but in comparison fries = starch+fat, and cola = tons of sugar in solution. And somehow it doesn't make you feel like munching and munching unlike fries (and the sugar drinks aren't really effective at quenching thirst )

So: try skipping the sugar drinks and sticking to just water.

That cuts a fair bit of calories PLUS it stops all that sugar from smacking into your bloodstream.

Think about it: all that sugar water will often go through your intestines pretty fast, and then it'll hit your blood stream.

Once there, your body has to either:
1) Leave it in your blood = diabetes
2) Remove it from your blood by either
a) converting it to fat = obesity
b) excreting it out via your kidneys = usually diabetes or kidney probs.
c) burn it as fuel - this is unlikely given the amounts people in the US drink.

So if you drink sweet drinks or eat sweet stuff many times a day don't be surprised your health suffers. It's probably OK once in a while as a treat.

There was also a guy who lost quite a lot of weight just eating subway sandwiches.

Loosing Weight with DDR

[tepp]

Well, I must confess I'm trying to loose weight with DDR myself. I'm doing Ultramix 2 at the moment. 1 hour a day, 5 days a week. I'm up to getting A's on 4 feet dances, passing some 5 feets (the hardness of a song in DDR is measured in feets, 1 feet being easy, 10 being suicide). My main goal is more on getting A's than passin harder songs, as I find I get better faster by practicing my techniques.

I've had a yo-yo problem with diets for the past four years. I've lost 30 pounds, put 10 back on, lost 5, put 10 back on... now I'm at 160 (175 was my max). I really want to be 140. Actually, what I really want is to wear size 10 jeans. Currently I wear size 12's. I'm female, 5'5". Yes, I'm fat, you don't have to tell me. But at least I'm trying.

I've done many different diets. I eat healthy. I don't ever eat at McDonalds or Burger King. I eat small portions of meat, low-fat frozen yogurt, no candy or chips. I usually stay under 1500 calories a day, 2000 max when I'm being bad. But my metabolism is very slow. I can only drop weight through dieting by going down to 1200 calories a day, then I get dizzy and start fainting. I've done atkins - twice. I lost weight but couldn't keep it off. My best dieting system was the Hacker's Diet, using my palm pc to count calories.

I've had gym memberships. I hate doing cardio on the exercize bikes or on the treadmills. It's so dull. After 5 minutes I'm so bored, that I give up. You can't read while running on a treadmill, and the TV in the gym has no sound. I love to walk outside, but in Seattle, it rains most of the time so I can't walk every day. When I do walk, I walk 3 miles or more.

DDR is something I can do every day, rain or shine. My xbox and my dance pad are always waiting for me. I've been dancing for 2 weeks, and my husband has noticed how toned my legs have gotten! I haven't weighed in this week, but my jeans are getting looser and my butt is firmer. I'm also getting much better at all the jumps and fast steps on DDR. A week ago I couldn't get higher than a D on any song. Last night I got my first A on a 4 feet song, then immediately got another A on another 4 footer. Sweet.

DDR really is a workout. Your heart races, you sweat buckets. But you don't want to quit, because you were SO CLOSE to getting through that song with no Boo's. You ALMOST HAD IT - ONE MORE TRY! So you go back on and do that song again, and again, and again, because it's addictive. But at least this sort of addiction has me exercising rather than just slaying virtual dragons.

I play DDR with a big glass of water next to me. I drink all of it during my workout. I have a timer that lets me know when an hour has passed, so I don't cheat, but usually I play a few more songs after it goes off as I was SO CLOSE to beating "In your eyes", or some other song.

Anyway, I wouldn't say DDR is for everyone. But for those who are saying "go outside" - in Seattle, it's rainy and cold and windy. For those saying "it's a video game - it's not exercise", I dare you to try and get a high score without making your heart thud in your chest. You find yourself bouncing, hopping, jumping, leaping from square to square trying to get your timing just right. It's a better workout than yoga - it's as fast paced as the Step class I took once. Nearly as hard as the spinning class I did last year. And I am having lots of fun.

My only gripe is my pad is dying. It's a cheap softmat, I'm going to have to invest in an ignition pad soon. :( Since I play on the XBOX, I can't get a cobalt flux, and I've been hearing bad things about the ignition pads and XBOX support. :(

Re:Loosing Weight with DDR

[DaFork]

DDR is a great way to lose weight! I lost about 50 lbs so far.

I found the pad makes a HUGE difference. I play Stepmania with a Cobalt Flux on a hardwood floor. That is pretty much the ultimate in responsiveness. I tried playing with a friends soft pad on carpet... it was absolutely horrible.

A better pad = higher scores = less frustration = more fun = more playing = losing more pounds!!!

My advice. Buy a Red Octane Ignition pad at EB Games and buy the insurance on the pad. If you are not on a hardwood floor, buy a piece of plywood to put under your pad to prevent it from bending. If you play every day, the pad will wear out in less than a year (my first RO lasted about 7 months). Once it wears out, the insurance lets you take it back and get a replacement.

Food means nothing

[Anonymous Coward]

I eat junk all the time and I am considered underweight! plus I do no exercise

What am I doing wrong!??!?!?! help me put on weight!!!

For a single person.

[SanityInAnarchy]

A DDR game for my house cost under $1000 total (think $850-900), and I was getting the Cobalt Flux pads that can stand being run over by an SUV, because I am semi-hardcore and 234 pounds. I destroy anything less through the sheer hours I play when I'm into it.

Cobalt Flux

[SanityInAnarchy]

Get a cobalt flux pad ($300 apiece, about) and try some harder songs. I found I get better faster if I focus more on playing songs that are hard for me (B or C material) but not absolutely impossible (huge stretches where I stop and stare at the screen with my mouth hanging open.)

I play way fewer hours a week average than you, and I get As on some 7 and 8 feet dances. But I'd never have done that if I was focussing on the AA on 4 feet dances.

pedometer?

[SanityInAnarchy]

How the HELL is a pedometer going to measure how many steps I take when my upper body hardly moves at all, and if my pelvis is moving, it's twisting, not vertical? I'd think I'd be doing about five times as many steps as it'd be measuring, unless they strap it to my ankle, in which case the thing will break first song I do.

I can do some 7- and 8-feet songs -- that means it's been assigned a difficulty of eight out of ten.

If they want to know how many steps and which songs we were doing -- and scores and such -- then they should hack on an open-source equivalent. There's also an official version of DDR, but who knows how hackable/loggable it will be. Of course, they have to buy the kids computers now, but DDR is hardly using a PS2 to its full potential, so you can probably find/build a low-end computer for it.

Re:Loosing Weight with DDR (on the pc!)

[yfmaster]

Get stepmaina from sourceforge.com, go to levelsix.com and get the DDR Deluxe Dance Mat V.3.1 (PC/USB). It's under fifty bucks and works really well. (i've used the 3.1 pad for playstation and used an adapter) You will have to download some songs, but its really easy.