One thing that 83% of all children aged 8 to 18 in the United States have in common is a video game player in the bedroom. Video and computer gaming is becoming the preferred activity during leisure time for so many US children that the industry reports sales increases of $5.2 billion in the past decade, even as the rate of childhood obesity continues to soar.

Researchers Robin R. Mellecker, BSc, and Alison M. McManus, PhD, tested 18 children in Hong Kong as they played various forms of video/computer games to see if any physiological differences were associated with different forms of virtual play. The sedentary nature of such games has been suggested as a cause of childhood obesity. The researchers, working from the Institute of Human Performance at the University of Hong Kong in Pokfulam, found that kids’ bodies react to active video games much the same way as they do to active play.

The children in the study ranged in age from 6 to 12, with 9.6 being the average age of the study participants. Each child’s heart rate and energy expenditure (calories burned) was monitored as he or she participated in a 25-minute regimen involving a series of rest periods interspersed with a series of various computer games.

Computer games, played for five minutes each, ranged from a bowling game played while seated, an active bowling game, to an action/running game. The research team used a XaviX gaming system for active gaming, which offers players a chance to bowl, fish, play tennis, golf, and other sporting activities in a virtual world. When used with a gaming mat, the player can walk, run, jump, and fight their way through the ninja-filled streets of Hong Kong, as they did for the action/running sequence of the study.

The number of calories burned during each event varied dramatically. Children playing seated games burned 39% more calories per minute than they did when they were simply resting. The active bowling game burned 98% more calories than resting but the action/running game with the mat burned 451% more calories.

The research team says adjusting caloric expenditure by as little as 150 calories a day is enough to prevent weight gain, an energy gap the team says would be filled by playing on an action mat for as few as 35 minutes a day.

The children’s hearts got a workout in the virtual world, too. When the children played the active game, their heart rates increased by 20 beats per minute and it jumped to an additional 79 beats per minute when the gaming mat was used.

The authors say their study demonstrates that these two active formats for computer and video gaming can produce a meaningful increase in energy expended over sedentary games. They express interest in furthering the research to determine if active gaming might someday be considered a realistic, sustainable, alternative to active physical games on the playground.

The JAMA/Archives journals have presented the study’s findings in the September issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. The University of Hong Kong Research Council Strategic Research Theme Public Health funded the study.

Source: JAMA