Grace Wittman The Situation The 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans and MyPyramid, recommends that children get 60 minutes of moderate level exercise each day. It also states that eating an 1800 calorie diet, that includes foods from all the food groups, is essential to a healthy child. Unfortunately, most children do not meet these recommendations. [...]

Video game playing used to be a sedentary pastime, but now a growing number of games are compelling us to get up and move. These games – sometimes called “exergames” or “exertainment” – involve the player in dance, aerobics, kick-boxing, sports moves, martial arts, virtual window washing, or other forms of physical activity and exertion [...]

Researchers have found that children using the active video games or exergames can burn as much as three times more calories per minute than when they are at rest. Such an energy expenditure is similar to walking 3.0 to 4.0 miles per hour on a treadmill. In one study, 10-year-old participants were giving free access [...]

Barbara Chamberlin, PhD, and Rachel Gallagher Research Presentation Children, Youth and Families At Risk (CYFAR) Conference San Antonio, TX May 7, 2008 Thanks to increasingly sophisticated game controllers, such as Nintendo’s Wii and dance pads originally made popular in video arcades, computer games with non-standard controllers are emerging as a new trend. More frequently, seasoned [...]