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

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: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.