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

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

[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

[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.

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.

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: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: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: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!

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: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...

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:$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: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: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: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...

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.