Playing Wii doesn’t keep children fit
THEY are billed as the modern way to exercise and have fun, all without having to leave the comfort of your living room.
But playing active video games won’t help you stay fit, a study claims.
Researchers who tracked dozens of overweight children for three months found those who mimicked the movements of boxing, tennis and other sports using a Nintendo Wii were no more active overall than those who played video games while sitting on the couch.
The results of the study, published in Pediatrics, a major medical journal, represent a setback for Nintendo, which claims that playing with its latest gadget, the Wii Fit Plus, ‘a little every day’ will improve fitness and health.
Nintendo is also an official partner of Change4life, the Government’s high profile anti-obesity drive. Games on the Wii are played by waving a wireless, motionsensitive remote through the air to control the movement of bats, racquets and boxing gloves on screen.
Some previous studies have shown it to boost exercise levels. But these were done under tightly-controlled laboratory con- ditions, and ‘real world’ studies have produced conflicting results. For the latest research, led by Tom Baranowski, of Baylor College of Medicine in Texas, 78 overweight boys and girls were given Wii consoles and a supply of active or inactive games, and were fitted with a gadget that recorded how much they moved.
This revealed those who played the active games did not do any more exercise overall than those who played more traditional inactive games.
Dr Baranowski said: ‘ We expected that playing the video games would in fact lead to a substantial increase in physical activity in the children. Frankly we were shocked by the complete lack of difference.’
He said it was possible the children put minimum effort into playing the active games, or that they compensated for their exertion by doing less exercise later on.
He cautioned that his study was not definitive but said that it ‘indicates that there’s no public health benefit from having those active video games’.