Active video games discouraged by child fitness experts
On-screen exertions not intense or long-lasting enough, research suggests
Active video games, or "exergames," offer little help to make kids more physically active, a new Canadian report advises.
Physical activity experts at Active Healthy Kids Canada reviewed more than 1,300 published papers on active video games like those that combine consoles with wands on Nintendo's Wii and the Kinect device for Xbox.
"Active Healthy Kids Canada does not recommend active video games as a strategy to help kids be more physically active," they conclude in a position statement published Monday.
The research suggested that active video games get heart rates up somewhat, but not strongly or long enough to get the full 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity children and youth need each day, said Dr. Mark Tremblay, the group's chief scientific officer and director of the healthy active living and obesity research group at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute in Ottawa.
While active video games can help break up sedentary time like sitting on the couch watching TV, they're just not as valuable as playing sports or physical games like tag.
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