Michigan State University\u2019s Wei Peng reviewed published research of studies of these games and says that most of the AVGs provide only \u201clight-to-moderate\u201d intensity physical activity.<\/p>\n And that, she says, is not nearly as good as what she calls \u201creal-life exercise.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFor those not engaging in real-life exercise, this may be a good step toward this,\u201d said Peng, an assistant professor of telecommunication, information studies and media. \u201cEventually the goal is to help them get somewhat active and maybe move to real-life exercise<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n Of the 41 AVG studies the researchers looked at, only three of them proved to be an effective tool in increasing physical activity<\/strong>.<\/p>\n \u201cSome people are very enthusiastic about exergames,\u201d Peng said. \u201cThey think this will be the perfect solution to solve the problem of sedentary behavior. But it\u2019s not that easy.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s generally recommended that the average adult get 30 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise each day. Unfortunately, most of the games that were studied provided only light activity, \u201cso they were not meeting the recommendations,\u201d Peng said.<\/p>\n However, for some populations light-to-moderate activity can sometimes be enough.<\/p>\n \u201cThe games do have the potential to be useful,\u201d Peng said, \u201cespecially for populations that are more suitable to light-to-moderate activity \u2013 seniors, for example.\u201d<\/p>\n Peng said exergames also have proven to be useful when used in structured exercise programs, such as those used for rehabilitation or in senior citizen centers<\/strong>.<\/p>\n “Just giving the games to people may not be a good approach,” Peng said. “They may not use it or use it effectively. It’s better if used in a structured program where there are more people participating.”<\/p>\n Peng and colleagues\u2019 findings are detailed in the recent edition of the journal Health Education and Behavior<\/em>.<\/p>\n Other authors of the paper are Julia Crouse, a doctoral student in the MSU College of Communication Arts and Sciences, and Jih-Hsuan Lin, a faculty member at the National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan.<\/p>\n The research was funded by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Pioneer Portfolio through its national program, Health Games Research.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From the Michigan State University press release: Active video games, also known as \u201cexergames,\u201d are not the perfect solution to the nation\u2019s sedentary ways, but they can play a role… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10],"tags":[227,237],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5466"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5466"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5466\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5469,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5466\/revisions\/5469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/images\/blogpics\/Wii.jpg\" "\\"videogames\\"")
Active video games, also known as \u201cexergames,\u201d are not the perfect solution to the nation\u2019s sedentary ways, but they can play a role in getting some people to be more active.<\/strong><\/p>\n