Video Game to Fight Obesity

Study Uses Video Games to Fight Obesity (AP)

By ALLISON BARKER, Associated Press Writer
CHARLESTON, W.Va. - Like many 11-year-old boys, K.D. Jones loves sports. But at 5 feet, 175 pounds, he found his weight and the asthma it caused an obstacle to enjoying many activities. His doctor wanted him to lose 50 pounds, and he's hoping a new health study using video games to fight obesity will help him get down to 125 by the end of summer in time to play football.

Jones is one of 85 children being recruited by the West Virginia Public Employees Insurance Agency to participate in an at-home study using the video game Dance Dance Revolution to increase activity.

He lost about 10 pounds by changing his diet. Now after two weeks playing the game, he's lost another 10.

"I feel a lot better," he said. "It's a lot easier to play basketball now."

His enthusiasm has his mother, who struggles with her own weight issues, giving the game a try.

"It's a lot of fun," Joyce Jones said. "But I can only do it about two times for every four times he does."

PEIA, which covers 215,000 public employees, teachers and their dependents, believes it is the first insurance provider to use the game to cut costs. Konami Digital Entertainment America, which distributes the Japanese game in the United States, knows of no other state or insurance agency using the game for its health benefits.

"Today's kids are tomorrow's members," said Nidia Henderson, PEIA health promotions manager. "Obesity claims last year cost us $77 million. We have to curtail those costs."

PEIA is providing a game console, dance pad and software for the six-month, $60,000 Games for Health study. West Virginia University is providing the medical screenings and tracking results.

The students, all children of PEIA-covered employees, are required to meet with researchers, play the game a prescribed amount of time, wear a pedometer and maintain a log. They get to keep the game software and pad.

So far, about a dozen kids have started playing the game. They will be re-evaluated after 12 weeks and again 12 weeks later.

PEIA also has spent about $10,000 on a two-year pilot project with the state Department of Education to put the game in 20 schools for use in physical education and health classes. They hope children who play it at school will get their parents to buy it for home use.

In West Virginia, nearly 43 percent of children screened in the Coronary Artery Risk Detection in Appalachian Communities project were considered overweight and more than 25 percent were obese. The project looked at 5,887 children in 27 rural West Virginia counties during the 1999-2002 school years.

"We are in a crisis in terms of childhood obesity not only in West Virginia but in America," said Linda Carson, a professor in WVU's School of Physical Education who is coordinating the PEIA study with Emily Murphy, a doctorate candidate at WVU's medical school.

Prescreening tests on the overweight children who signed up for the PEIA study have already raised concerns.

Researchers expected to find problems with blood pressure and cholesterol, but they also found that blood flow to the arteries was being disrupted. The condition can lead to diabetes and heart disease, Murphy said.

Researchers at Syracuse University in New York also have been looking at the potential for improved cardiovascular and physiological effects of children using the game. And at Penn State, researchers are studying how much energy children use playing games like Dance Dance Revolution.

Robrietta Lambert, a physical education teacher at Franklin Elementary in Pendleton County, believes she already knows what all the studies will find. She's been using the video game in her classes since last fall.

"It improves cardiovascular health as well as eye-hand coordination," Lambert said. "Kids who don't like other things bloom on this. If they don't like basketball, jumping rope or ball activities, they like this."

Players stand on a 3-foot-square metal mat with an arrow on each side — pointing up, down, left and right. Arrows scroll up the television screen to the beat of more than 100 tunes chosen by the player. As an arrow moves across the screen, the player steps on the corresponding arrow on the platform. Hidden songs are uncovered as players improve their speed and scores.

Sounds easy enough, but throw in combinations of multiple arrows, add the quick speed at which veterans play, and the game is as challenging as an aerobics class. Most beginners are flushed in the face after one or two songs.

At Morgantown High School, one of the 20 pilot sites, curiosity about the flashing lights and upbeat music draw students inside Maxine Arbogast's health class. The game, which was first introduced as an arcade game in Japan, is attracting the sedentary and the seasoned athlete alike.

Senior Stephanie Bellman, 18, says she's already getting addicted after only a few days.

"I like how it creates a good mood. Even when you mess up you laugh," Bellman said.

About 2.5 million copies of the game have been sold in North America since it became available for home use in 2001, said Jason Enos, product manager at Konami Digital Entertainment America in Redwood City, Calif.

The home version includes a workout mode that can track how many calories the user burns while playing. The game costs about $40. A combination pack with software and a flat plastic dance pad sells for $60. Premium pads can sell separately for hundreds of dollars.

"The fitness and workout aspect of DDR is hidden behind a layer of fun and entertainment," Enos said. "That is what is motivating kids who are overweight to get them up on the dance pad and move their bodies."

 

I wonder if it ever occurred to him to just go play basketball instead of the video game in the first place.