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Show: April 3, 2011:
- Defining Essential Health Benefits
- Video Games That Get Kids Moving
- Health Effects from Radiation in Japan
- Less Sedation for ICU Patients Improves Recovery
- Stretching for Runners
- Psioritic Arthritis
- Spring Cleaning Your Diet
- View all topics for the week
Sound Medicine is brought to you by:
Did You Know?: Video Games That Get Kids Moving
Host: Jeremy Shere, PhD
Did you Know? is presented by Wishard Health Services, becoming Eskenazi Health in 2014.
Video games that involve moving around, like games on the Nintendo Wii and Microsoft’s new Kinect, are lots of fun to play. But did you know that they can also help kids stay in shape?
In a recent study, researchers at the University of Massachusetts had 39 middle-school kids play a variety of exergames, including a boxing game and one involving chasing a cartoon Jackie Chan around the streets of Hong Kong.
And they found that playing the games increased the amount of calories the kids burned by as much as 800%, compared to when they were inactive. Burning calories at that rate is about the same as walking on a treadmill at a speed of 3 miles per hour.
The researchers say that the study is encouraging especially for overweight kids who may not normally like to run around or play sports. Playing active video games could be an alternative way for those kids work up a sweat and burn off some extra calories.
And now you know.
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Did You Know? is presented by Senior Care at Wishard, answering your questions at LivingLongerBetter.org
Additional Resources:
- Find out more about kids burning calories with video games at WebMD.
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