Nintendo Wii: A Combatant of Childhood Obesity

When Generation X was growing up, my generation, we were expected to play outside with friends and participate in sports. The only video game console that was out in the beginning was the Atari . And really who wanted to play with that with the horrible graphics that it had. That quickly died out with Generation Y. In this day and age, children are going outside less and playing video games and using their computers more, becoming less active than children their age several decades ago. Until now, video games have largely been a fairly passive activity, resulting in few calories burned. As a teenage kid, video games weren't my cup of tea. I can remember times when I would play my Nintendo only when I was either on punishment or the weather was too unbearable to go out to play. I can remember getting my first Nintendo NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) for Christmas. I got two games. One was the popular Mike Tyson's Punch Out. At the time, Mike Tyson had just came on the boxing scene and was terrorizing everyone he came in contact with. The other game was Contra. It was a military style game where you had to go through multiple levels to save the world. At that time, video games were still new and a lot of households didn't have them. Fast forward twenty years later, now the opposite has taken place. Most kids have multiple game systems in the home such as the Sony's Playstation I through III , or Microsofts' Xbox or Xbox 360, or the one that is making a lot of adults and children alike get off their butts and exercise, Nintendo's Wii. During the years, I have watched Nintendo come out with various versions of their game console, and through it all, I have been a big advocate of them because they always seem to create a way to make their games more interactive as oppose to sedentary.

I can remember with the NES game console, individuals had an option to purchase an additional piece of equipment called the Power Pad or the Power Glove that made the Nintendo NES games more interactive. The Power Pad was a piece of plastic that reminded me of the game Twister because it had these dots that were on it that required people to stand and play the game. The Nintendo Power Glove was a electronic glove that fit on your hand in which people could use when playing the NES. The problem with the Power Pad and Glove were that those two pieces of equipment were sold separately so many families would just buy the main game system and leave the Power Pad and/or Glove behind. So more and more game consoles followed, the Sega and Sega Genesis, Sony's Playstations, Microsoft's Xboxes. The graphics and story lines got better and better with each new company emerging. As a result burning off calories while playing traditional video games was next to impossible. Majority of the game consoles didn't require that much interaction in the area of moving around. More and more kids started to invest more heavily in video game consoles and video games, which in turn with the combination of poor nutrition caused more kids to suffer from childhood obesity. According to the CDC, childhood obesity has been on the rise for two decades. It has currently topped out at approximately 18%, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association. While some of this can be attributed to higher consumption of fatty foods and soft drinks, the bulk probably has more to do with inactivity.

Until now, with the introduction to Nintendo's Wii. Now for the first time you can combine video games with a high degree of activity, resulting in more calories burned and healthier kids. Wii is the new interactive video game system from Nintendo. Rather than sitting down with a remote control, the user must stand and mimic the actions that he/she wishes to complete on the screen. New studies are showing that Wii games such as boxing, aerobics, bowling and tennis, are helping users to get much needed exercise while still enjoying video games. God bless scientists. I even have a couple of adult clients who love to not only play the Nintendo Wii with their kids or family members, but they themselves find a lot of enjoyment and pleasure with playing the Wii alone. Some have gotten the Wii Fit to supplement the days when they are away from me and my training sessions.

Motion sensor-controlled consoles can make an impact on a child’s energy expenditure and calories burned, however parents should encourage outdoor pursuits such as riding a bike, or playing a quick pick up game of football, baseball, or basketball. If kids aren't able to go outside or can't find the time to go outdoors, the Nintendo Wii is the best substitute in the video game market in comparison to the other companies.

Liverpool John Moores University, scientists there have been hard at work measuring gamers’ activity levels, and found that playing Wii for 15 minutes boosts children's energy expenditure by 156%, compared to 60% using normal joypads on other consoles. They study continued to say that this calculated for the average child who spent 12.2 hours a week playing games, to potentially burn off 1,830 calories.

In conclusion, traditionally, video gaming systems are expensive, as are the games that must be purchased separately. In today's economy, setting up a video game systems can be a burden on a family's pocketbook. If you are debating to purchase a game console for your children and family this Christmas, the Nintendo Wii actively encourages gamers to get up and play rather than sinking further into a sedentary lifestyle. However, playing new generation active computer games uses significantly more energy than playing sedentary computer games but not as much energy as playing the sport itself. Therefore, parents and children should use the game console as an auxiliary to whatever current physical active that they have in place for their family and themselves.

Until next time keep moving. I have next on Madden Football on the Wii. Let's Go Panthers!!!

Reference: Physorg.com and Selfgrowth.com

Personal Trainer in Charlotte, NC