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DDR Coming To West Virginia Schools
Next Generation is reporting that Konami is bringing Dance Dance Revolution to 765 state public schools in West Virginia. The move is intended to counteract the growing youth obesity problem facing the United States. From the article: "'Bringing the health benefits and enjoyment that DDR provides to school children is a great way to combat childhood obesity that is caused by the sedentary lifestyle of today's kids,' said Konami's Clara Gilbert, director of business partnerships. 'DDR has been a proven success in schools and this program with the State of West Virginia demonstrates the positive effects that can come from making DDR a part of one's daily routine. This first-of-its-kind partnership will help us continue to demonstrate the benefits of DDR to consumers around the country.'" On one hand, that's awesome. On the other, if I was still in middle school, I think DDRing in front of middle school girls would be a sure way to cause permanent psychic scarring. Update: 01/25 21:34 GMT by Z : HTML is hard. Fixed link.
The story if you want it.
My work here is dung.
I say instead give a standalone DDR like machine to every obese kid. That way they can sweat to the oldies (or techno or whatever) in the comfort of their own home.
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whatever happened to exercising without a $500 machine, it might make America's youth less of technology addicts (current company excluded, of course).
On the other, if I was still in middle school, I think DDRing in front of middle school girls would be a sure way to cause permanent psychic scarring.
They would visciously abuse you with the power of their MINDS. I've always suspected females were capable of this.
Seriously, though, I think you're looking for the word "mental" there.
Tluin natha Linux xxizzuss uriu olt bwael mon'tun.
My brother bought two pads and DDR Extreme something something over Christmas, and we tried it out over the holidays. It is surprisingly addictive, and gets you sweating in no time. I hate going to the gym and shoving weights around, or spending a half hour pedalling to nowhere. For me, there is no reward in that. But with DDR, I don't notice at all that I have been jumping around for half an hour, and the game aspect in my particular version pushes me to get to the next level in complexity.
Here's the original article. I wonder if Massachusetts will take up the case, but insist that Stepmania [stepmania.com] be used instead...
Will you be able to 'letter' in DDR? Will there be state championships?
Or will this be more like just a machine in the middle of cafeteria that no one will touch for fear of peers' redicule. I would have tried it back in the day because I had pretty much maxxed out the peer redicule I could get.
OR will it be like racketball played against a gyms collapsed bleechers for two weeks during the required PE class?
Of course, if the machine is not on free play and/or not well maintained.... I actually expect both. I'd be surprised if K didn't expect kids to dump their change into the machines like they do with the soda/snack machines next to them.
On the other, if I was still in middle school, I think DDRing in front of middle school girls would be a sure way to cause permanent [psychologically] scarring.Scarring for whom? Perhaps both?
All kidding aside, I don't think it matters what middle-school-aged boys do in front of girls. They'll be embarrassed in any case. This is just a good way to burn a little energy and be entertained at the same time.
Help find a cure for cancer. Join the [H]orde
There was this game we used to play what was it called?
Oh, right, kickball.
How much did it cost to play this?
The cost of a ball or nothing if you had a butcher shop willing to give you an pig's stomach.
Thank god West Virginia has been blessed with DDR. Were it not for this half a grand machine, they might go down in history as morbidly obese like their forefathers.
What? Their forefathers weren't morbidly obese? You mean, it may be possible to have fun and excersize without some company cashing in off of you? Blasphemy!
My work here is dung.
If the kids are too lazy to play real sports (soccer, football, baseball, general active play rather than watching tv) then what makes these people think that the kids won't be too lazy to play DDR? Also, you can be really thin, but if you're eating junk food all the time, then you're still going to be unhealthy. They are fighting the problem in the wrong way. They should be getting kids to do more real activities, rather than relying on expensive equipment to make them healthy.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
The proper role of education is RRR - Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic. The idea that a school (a public one no less) should be enforcing diet or exercise or moral structure or anything other than a basic education is crazy.
How about we stop funding these nutjobs who want to be parents to our children, no educators?
DDR as a way to fight lardasses. Hmmm, okay. Wouldn't a live action doom be faster? Double shotgun in the blubber butt should cure them.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Bringing the health benefits and enjoyment that DDR provides
Health Benefits!? Seriously! Has society dropped that low. Whatever happened to PE class and casual sporting. Doctors should be to blame too for not telling their patients to lose weight miraculously solving many health problems without a pill.
Less coddling more ass kicking!
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Go canucks, habs, and sens!
When I was in high school, we used to drink coke/pepsi/pop/soda whatever a lot and we never gained a lot of weight. I really believe that the switch to high fructose corn syrup is a big cause of obesity IMNSO (non-scientific opinion). Obese kids back then were few and far between unlike kids today. I don't really see what kids are doing today that was different in high school in the 80s. So diet may have changed but this country needs to make a stand on what they feed their kids.
Perhaps, we should tell the corn lobby to screw itself and go back to sugar. Sugar is used in Canada, is obesity a problem there?
sri
The kids good at DDR won't touch a console version with the crappy pad they will be supplying.
Now if it was Stepmania with a couple of Cobalt Flux pads, then you may have a problem.
No, if schools are wasting time focusing on stuff other than learning
Yeah, we should just cut out all physical activity during the day in preperation for that desk job their bound for after college.....
nothing
Well this is health education and I think if it can make a difference in people's lives its worth it. Frankly, I'm using it to get back into shape and am beginning to see results and lose weight.
Also, if we take the 3Rs strictly that precludes the teaching of algebra (algebra being beyond the scope of arithmetic), computer science,and trade class, art class, geography or any other science, literary criticism... and just about anything else worth knowing.
Frankly the only nutjob here is you.
Your CPU is not doing anything else, at least do something.
Art class and history can be fun electives -- electives that are chosen by the student and paid for by the student. I don't see the need for a state funded 8-3pm education. Grammar/spelling/reading, mathematics (up to pre-algebra) and writing/typing are all I want to see the public system doing. Basic bare education, and let the parents fund the rest.
I don't want to fund kids jumping up and down, that is the parent's job to make sure their child is healthy, not my job.
Look. I'm a father of two and soon to be three. I watch what they eat. I criticize and take an active role in their appearance, health and nutrition. I do this because somewhere in my past, my parents were like this and back in THEIR day, your children were viewed as an extension of yourself... and god forbid I ever embarass my parents by being fat or not being properly cared for.
Perhaps fear of humiliation is not the best motivation, but it certainly worked for my parents and it works for me. I'm proud of my kids and the results of my efforts. I'm proud of my ability to apply my mind to overcome the current environment (where virtually all food is bad for you thanks to competition and efforts to increase shelf-life). I feel shame for all the parents of obese children and pity for the children -- it's not their fault!
I've ranted on this before and I guess I am again. If a parent was "neglecting" a child in some way that causes bodily harm, usually, the kids are taken away and/or the parents are criminally prosecuted. Why, then, isn't childhood obesity not considered bodily harm?
While I'm all for the promotion of my favorite video game genre, I don't think this is the way to go about it. A lot of people (myself included) will not be able to enjoy the game because they are being told to play it. If they had picked it up on their own it would be fun in addition to a good workout.
Also, why are they paying $740 bucks for this? I could get the same thing for less than $500 per setup, thereby saving over $200,000 in the process. They're more than welcome to forward that extra $200k my way and I'll hook 'em up.
Ah well. I prefer Pump it Up anyway...
Fifteen years after its demise, the East German communist state is infiltrating a US school system--talk about sneaky and resilient.
I suspect somebody was always picked last for kickball and still holds a little grudge toward phys ed in public schools.
nothing
Morality is a hard one. The problem lies in figuring out what should be common to everyone and what should be left to the individual's family and culture.
Most teachers don't want to be parents to their students; they want to be teachers. However, way too many parents either don't have the time or inclination to be parents, so often the teachers end up filling that role as best they are able. The government sees what is happening and tries to take on some of that itself instead of leaving it up to the already-overworked teachers. I'm not saying this is right, only that it is what is happening. If more parents would take responsibility for their children, this wouldn't be an issue.
If parents weren't so quick to anger when someone else disciplines their children for doing something wrong, this wouldn't be an issue.
For example, just yesterday while we were at a restaurant, my two year old son was punched by a 6-8 year old just because he was in the way while walking toward the game room. He's got a nice bruise on his cheek now. My wife didn't do anything but pick him up, because she didn't want to cause a commotion. She wouldn't point the kid out to me either. If I'd seen it, I'd've grabbed the other kid and made him take me to his parents to let them know what he'd done, and hope they'd agree that was wrong.
Edward Burr
Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.
Actually the football coach begged me to join Freshman year (I was hard to tackle when we played smear-the-queer at recess) but I hated football. I also held records for some stats for almost a decade after I graduated (pull ups, climbing speed, and track). I'm no jock, but I'm very athletic.
Well, fuck you.
They also need to find a way to allow students to get DDR credit as a way to avoid the useless and largely unnecessary PE classes. Usually only athletic students really participate, to everyone else it's just a junk class to be avoided and ignored as much as possible...
Basic health, including diet and exercise, are others.
So you want the same government that promoted the Food Pyramid death trap to teach your kids how to eat and exercise? Sorry, but I'm a pro-fat pro-protein anti-sugar anti-starch kind of guy, and I know that the teachers are teaching kids that bread is good, butter is bad. It is the other way around, friend, and you're going to poison your kids with that garbage.
The problem lies in figuring out what should be common to everyone and what should be left to the individual's family and culture.
There is no common morality as I see it. The only rule I can think that needs to be taught to kids is "don't hurt anyone else, don't hurt their property." The side comment of this is "if two adults share cooperate voluntarily with each other, no one should stop them from transacting any barter or trade." That's it. The parents teach that, the schools teach education. I'm against public funding of education entirely, but stretching it to cover morals or health is ridiculous.
However, way too many parents either don't have the time or inclination to be parents, so often the teachers end up filling that role as best they are able.
In 1980, the household tax burden was under 30% of total income to government at every level.
In 2005, the household tax burden is over 50% of total income to goverment at every level.
You want to know WHY parents don't have time? They're too busy paying off the bad decisions the voters made 20 years ago. End the public education system, dump the property taxes that pay for it, and you'll be able to return mom (or dad) back home to take care of the children. Don't tell me to pay for your bad voting decisions.
The government sees what is happening and tries to take on some of that itself instead of leaving it up to the already-overworked teachers.
Overworked? When teachers have to teach homosexuality, AIDs, exercise, diet, government-written history, and economics to children, of course they are overworked. These are subjects that should come from family-paid higher education or the home, not from teachers. We can cut education to 3 hours per day, refund 70% of the money people pay in taxes for education, and fix the problem in 1 year or less.
If I'd seen it, I'd've grabbed the other kid and made him take me to his parents to let them know what he'd done, and hope they'd agree that was wrong.
I'd have grabbed the kid and called my lawyer. I also wouldn't let my 2 year old be wandering around without me. I wouldn't let my 6 year old or 10 year old do so either. It is the parents' job to monitor their child completely until that child is a major, at which point that adult (no matter the age) is responsible for themselves. If an 8 year old is wandering around alone, he's an adult in my eyes.
Only one person can be on a dancepad at a time. How many will be in each school?
...or be prosecutedt to the full extent of the jam!
Circumcision is child abuse.
If you've seen Frontline's Diet Wars a lot of it could be due to the "Low Fat" craze. Low fat foods are not low calorie foods. In fact, they're only a few cals different from the full-fat foods. The food makers make up with something else when they remove one ingredient. Low-fat could mean high sugar/carbs instead for instance. Full-fat salad dressing is healthier than low-fat, because veggie fats are good for you, etc.
:), would be just as effective. Then you DDR for the Olympics. :)
Dieting is actually all about restricting caloric intake instead which hasn't been the focus. If the Earth 2 biodome results were any indication, restricted caloric intake extends your life too.
Seen that can of soda? From 100 to 160 calories right there.. Then you have a big 1000 cal lunch and dinner (Carl's Jr?), and you're already beyond the normal 2000 calories males should be intaking a day.
This is why Atkins and South Beach seem to work because they're all about low-calorie meals (meat is slow-burning, low-cal, and high fat), and at least South Beach seems to be about eating healthier too.
Get rid of the soda machines, make the kids walk to school (with 5 pounds on each foot preferably
Disclaimer: I'm a former DDR addict also, but I've lost more inches through just pilates and a no soda diet. Still 160lbs.
I think the REAL news here is that Konami still gives a shit about DDR anymore.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."
If you want to lose weight then eat less, eat healthier and exersize more. Thats it. Thats all there is to it.
Its not complicated or difficult, its just easy to be lazy and buy mcdonalds and feel full instead of buying a salad and being hungry. If you change your lifestyle (because temporary diets are a joke) you will feel hungry, you will feel tired, you will feel different and upset. You have to deal with it.
Stress and Malnutrition are the ONLY ways to lose weight. If you consume only 1700 calories a day, you will eventually be down (or up) to 170 pounds.
Its simple math.
I graduated from HS 3 years ago, and they had DDR and some kind of bike hooked up to a playstation for my Junior and Senior years (the HS is in a western suburb of Chicago).
...
...). They were easily 'hackable,' so the lazy kids just had them display the last person who got an A's statistics when the teacher came around to collect scores.
The thing is, that almost no one ever used them
The kids who really wanted to get into shape used the weight room, treadmills, and other 'traditional' excercise machines and the kids who didn't want to get into shape weren't going to be fooled by such an obvious ploy.
We were required to wear pulse monitors and our grade depended on our average bpm (I think something around 170+ was an A
No amount of technology is ever going to get people into shape who don't want to be. Working out, almost by definition, involves hard work. People who want to get in shape will manage to regardless of how few tools are available, and people who want to avoid it will always be able to do so (in fact, I think these high tech toys are easier to cheat with).
I have an image of an entire generation dancing like the DDR Asian kid in the "You Got Served" episode of South Park?
The horror... The... Horror...
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
Like it or not, schools are effectivley daycares for children. Unless, of course, you plan on sitting with your children in each class. There's something to be said about home schooling here, but in its absence, yes, schools do provide "parenting" (in addition to education) for kids while mommy and daddy are working/etc.
And I believe wages are lower because both parents work. Once women entered the workforce en masse, they increased the supply of available workers, lowering the demand, and therefore lowering wages, too.
The mess starts with government, it ends with government, and it has government in the middle too.
How about you teach your kids a reasonable diet and acknowledge that too much meat and butter is as bad as too much bread and sugar?
It doesn't take that long to be halfway decent at DDR. If you practice at home for a month or two then you could probably get to a standard where people will gather round and watch in awe.
DDR Coming To West Virginia Schools
You mean those poor buggers still had machines running with PC133? Ouch!
Evil goverment allows women to work? Move to middle east!
My wife was with him. I was at our table with my other son. She had no reason to expect some kid to just lash out and punch him as he was walking by.
As for some of your other points...
Another reason parents don't have time is because they both have to work to pay for all the things they think they need, including cable TV and a new car every few years. Housing prices don't help things either; a house has got to be one of the only things in existence that gets more expensive with every sale.
You say you see no common morality, then go on to start a short list of what should be common. I agree with all the items in your list, but if given some time could probably think of a few more to add. Others may disagree. So, again, what should be common? :)
As for diet, maybe teaching how to watch what you eat, how to impose self-discipline instead of eating it all just because it's there, and other general concepts like that. As for our understanding of what's good for you and what's bad for you, that does seem to change a lot over time. You would prefer that every person must experiment for him/herself and see what happens 20 years down the road when it's too late to do anything about it?
And about teachers being overworked... They have to teach all day, usually with a one hour break and 15-20 minutes of lunch before returning to supervise the students. Only after the students go home do they get time to grade homework and prepare the next days lesson plans. Yeah, absolute basics probably would require only 3-4 hours a day in the classroom. All the extra stuff grew over time as people wanted other things taught. Remember, our government is run by people who want to appear that they are pleasing the majority of people or at least the loudest mob.
Edward Burr
Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.
Do any of the /. DDR players realize how insane this sounds?
WV is one of the most ass-backwards states in the Union. The only way to get kids to play that game in WV would be to replace the K-pop and J-pop with some David Allan Coe.
Exercise will certainly do some good. However, the problem has come from the two great uncontrolled dietary experiments the US has undertaken in the last 50+ years.
The first was the large scale introduction of vegetable oil, often hydrogenated, into the diet, to replace animal fats. There is not, and never was, any scientific basis for exposing mass populations to dietary elements which their evolutionary history could not have prepared them for.
The second was the large scale move to a high carbohydrate diet. it was called low-fat. Low-fat sounds reasonable and uncontroversial. High carbohydrate, which is what it was, has neve been shown to improve the health of any population, and would have been very controversial if labelled as what it was.
The results of the experiments are now coming in. The evidence is that the results are increases in heart disease and diabetes and obesity. The way to solve the problem would be partially exercise, but a more important step would be going back to the diet traditionally eaten around 1900, before the great increase in heart disease. This would be a diet fairly high in animal fats, generally eaten incidentally to eating meat and poultry or dairy products, and one with (complex rather than refined) carbohydrates accounting for a much smaller percentage of calories than today. We would eat grass fed meat, fish and eggs, with fresh vegetables and butter on them, and relatively coarse, though not whole grain, bread. Olive oil would be used in cooking and salad. There would be a total lack of polyunstaturated and hydrogentated vegetable oil, and little or no refined sugar.
Exercise is fine, but exercise while eating faddish garbage is not going to solve the problem.
Well, it was when Robert Byrd was Senate Majority (and Appropriations) Leader, but not any more. You've inadvertantly pointed out the primary problem with this program, though; it'll cost a lot of money to maintain unless you only provide very few machines, which in turn will cause crowding concerns. The state may be willing to spend that money, however, considering how massive (haha, I made a funny) the obesity problem is here.
Rob
Like anything that pounds on your feet, watch out for shin splints. Always wear good supportive shoes when playing for extended periods of time. Don't use soft mats and bare feet.
That is one bit of information that doesn't get passed around enough.
Of course kids are less susceptable than us older folk, just be careful because shin splints take forever to heal (if ever). I actually built a hard DDR pad that would allow me to use shoes because I got shin splints after playing DDR for 6-8 hours a day for three days straight (it's years later and they still flair up).
The ratio of people to cake is too big
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_dance
And it's free, too!
Why not just teach them real dancing?
Soylent Green is peoplicious!
Maybe you meant Psychological scarring? It'd be impressive if DDR will teach you how to mess with someone's mind!
"Don't meddle in the affairs of a patent dragon, for thou art tasty and good with ketchup." ~ohcrapitssteve
But despite that you seem to hold some grudge against those of us smart enough to get past algebra.
What an idiotic waste of money.
Want to keep their weight down? Have students sweep and clean school grounds every morning like they do in much of Asia. This will have other benefits beyond just getting exercise, in the very least you'll save money and keep the school clean. Put them through a more rigorous exercise program than the useless nonsense that passes for gym class. Obviously the existing system has its problems if they continue having obesity problems, and a bunch of video games wont change this.
How about teaching them dancing for real? It's a hell of a lot more effective than bouncing around like a fool on a giant pad and it will actually be useful outside of that game.
Where the hell do they find the people who run these schools?
I was just curious will these machines be free (or incentive based)so that everyone can play or will they require cash so that only the kids whose parents can afford to give them money for the machines can play? It'd be nice if we had one more way to point out the poor kids at school...
Oh good, create a permanent upper class. As if it isn't bad enough already. Put your idea in place and only wealthy kids will learn music, foreign languages, advanced math, and only wealthy kids will go to college.
By the way, parents are funding the "rest" it's called taxes.
(Some relevant info from a slashdot story I submitted a few months ago, which didn't make the cut)
Besides the obvious exercise benefits, it seems that the Dance Dance Revolution video game may also help out children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). A recent study in which sixth-graders with ADHD played DDR Disney Mix for an hour each week suggests that playing the game improved their focus and attention, although further studies are planned to get a better understanding of how it could help kids out.
Having a female workforce boosts productivity and increases the market, creating more supply as well as demand. But then, when didn't females participate in the economy? Except for the middle and upper classes, females have been working in the Western world forever, because the lower class has never been able to subsist off of a single income. Wages in the U.S. are dropping because more jobs are being moved to cheaper markets, leaving unskilled low-paying work. When you go to your anarchocapitalist meetings, do any of the educated people there make fun of you for being ignorant and nonsensical?
First, the good...
The intent is to address the growing problem of youth obesity.
Now, the bad...
The games, which will run on Microsoft Xboxes...
Nothing like shoving more taxpayer money into Microsoft's coffers.
nowadays the point of school is more to keep kids who aren't old enough to work occupied all day more than really learning.
-Glitch "We all know Linux is great...it does infinite loops in 5 seconds." - Linus Torvalds
Although its pretty cool that they're resorting to video games in an effort to teach the young'ens, I think the best thing to do is have mandatory gym classes all the way up to highschool, and actually fail kids who don't pass the gym class. I don't know about in the States, but here in Canada the only possible way to fail a kid is if the parents and the teachers agree to "hold them back". WTF!! I know kids in grade 12 that can't even fucking read because of this. Seriously, schools need to crack down and fail kids who are failing, and pass kids who are passing.
disclaimer: I've been known to store numbers in my ass for which to dig out when quantities are required.
Schools should take a pro-active role in physical exercise (and other areas like sex education) because parents sometimes do a really poor job raising children. Children should not have to suffer due to lack of exposure to certain health issues.
I'm still waiting for DDR on Xbox 360.
Why do two of the "3 Rs" not start with R? Somebody screwed the pooch on that.