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Active Video Games Don't Make Kids Exercise More

Posted by samzenpus on from the lazy-is-as-lazy-does dept.

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."

8 of 304 comments (clear)

  1. Same as school exercise by mdarksbane · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Study after study has shown the same thing with exercise at school.

    I wonder if the problem isn't so much that the average kid is being less active, as much as the current average diet is making those kids who *aren't* inclined to be active/have a high metabolism obese instead of just out of shape.

    1. Re:Same as school exercise by jerpyro · · Score: 5, Informative

      As a parent of young children in a single-income household, honestly I see the next class division between those who can afford to feed their kids healthy foods and those who can't. I can see a difference in my kids' ambition and attention levels when we eat balanced, home cooked meals with vegetables and whole grains versus when they've had three days of "Pizza Night", "Cereal Night" and "Out to Eat Night".

      It's scary what a good diet can do for kids, and it's even scarier that the diet is out of reach for a majority of people in America.

    2. Re:Same as school exercise by Unoriginal_Nickname · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yeah. All for the opportunity cost of one of those parents being at home to cook three square meals a day.

    3. Re:Same as school exercise by mdarksbane · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'd say ignorant and busy.

      Many people do not know how to cook interesting food for cheap. Yes, it's something that they should learn, but it is entirely as much of a skill as algebra. It takes time to develop, is not really taught in schools, and if not taught at home is going to require a lot of self-motivation to pick up.

      Similarly, much of good cooking takes time. If you have one parent working and another staying at home, you have that time. If you're both working, especially if you work long hours or have a bad commute, you may not have that time.

      Does that mean that we should re-examine some of our societal priorities, or make a bigger deal about keeping two parents in households, or make teaching cooking and basic life skills a bigger priority? Yes. Definitely.

      We need to realize that cooking, cleaning, shopping, and budgetting aren't things that people just know, even if *we* just know them because our parents taught them to us. There are all sorts of social capital that are so organic to our experience that we don't realize how hard it is to get by without them. That doesn't mean we should think it's cool to not know these things - but it does mean we should say "we should find a way to help people know this is an option, and how they can do it" rather than just saying they're too stupid and lazy to do it.

    4. Re:Same as school exercise by futuresheep · · Score: 5, Informative

      Frozen vegetables can be more nutrient rich than fresh, especially if the fresh vegetables were flown in from another country or stored in a warehouse before making it to the supermarket.

      http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2902223.stm
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frozen_vegetables
      http://www.livestrong.com/article/71064-fresh-versus-frozen-produce-which-healthier/

  2. You got to make kids do stuff... by ZombieBraintrust · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Kids left to themselves won't change their behavior. Parenting means more than buying your kid a toy and hoping for the best. News at 11.

  3. Causes of the decline of outside by tepples · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A couple things not directly related to video games caused the decline of outside. One is the decline of pedestrian-friendly urban design. Suburban sprawl makes it difficult for children to find playmates in a like age group and for them to find a place in which to play. Another is public hysteria about child molesters who lurk in public play areas.

  4. They may not make them exercise more... by cheekyjohnson · · Score: 5, Funny

    But they sure do excel at transforming them into cold-blooded murderers.

    --
    Filthy, filthy copyrapists!