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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.
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.
Kickball only works until about middle school. After that the kids are so strong that most of them are kicking homeruns(I wasn't one of them). Kickball, baseball, and softball are not very engaging sports, especialy when they are only played for about 40 minutes. Half the kids are sitting on the bench waiting to kick, and the other half are in the outfield waiting for the ball to come to them. With class sizes the way they were when I was in high school, there was even more waiting. Not much excercise going on there.
Ultimate Frisby is probably the best option for an all-inclusive sport. With a few frisbies you can break the class up into smaller groups, so that more kids can actually play the game. It requires the good hand-eye coordination that we nerds have built up through years of computer use and masturbating. It is also a lot of fun to play( that is coming from me, some one who generally doesn't like sports).
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).
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...). 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).
(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.