Active Video Games Don't Make Kids Exercise More

redletterdave writes "Researchers from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, designed every kid's dream study: they passed out Wii consoles to 78 kids who didn't already have one, and gave half the kids their choice of active game — such as Wii Sports or Dance Dance Revolution-Hottest Party 3 — and the other half their choice of inactive game, such as Disney Sing-It Pop Hits or Super Mario Galaxy. The research team tracked the youngsters for 13 weeks, testing their physical activity levels with a motion-measuring accelerometer. Participants wore the devices on a belt during four different week-long periods throughout the study, which allowed the research team to determine when they were sedentary or lightly exercising and when they were engaged in moderate-to-vigorous exercise. Accelerometer logs showed that throughout the study period, kids with the active games didn't get any more exercise than those given inactive video games. There was also no difference in minutes spent doing light physical activity or being sedentary during any week the researchers monitored."

Comments

Re:Same as school exercise

[kamapuaa]

A person has to eat 2000-3000 calories a day (depending on various factors, of course). A gallon of whole milk is a day's worth of calories for $2-$3 and the macronutrient breakdown is just about perfect. A pound of meat is half a day's calories and can easily be found for less than $5. A dozen eggs are a half or a third of a day's calories for less than $2. It goes on and on...meat and milk products are actually quite cheap. The expensive part is extravagant flavorings, and then fruits and vegetables. Grains are even cheaper but provide few micronutrients and shit macronutrients.

I hate to be an asshole, but raising a kid as a vegan is irresponsible - there are so many nutrients and macronutrients that are just not a part of a vegan diet, or are of poor quality/low quantity in a vegan diet. Once the kid is an adult let them make stupid decisions about their diet & health. Doing that to a growing child is just a terrible thing to do. At the least, have them drink some milk.