Wednesday 21 July 2010

Energy Expenditure and Cardiovascular Responses to Seated and Active Gaming in Children

+/- Click for more/less

Objective: To examine energy expenditure and cardiovascular
responses in children during seated and active
gaming.
Design: Comparison study.
Setting: Children’s Exercise Laboratory, University of
Hong Kong.
Participants: Eighteen children (aged 6-12 years) recruited
from local primary schools.
Main Exposure: Active and seated computer games
played by all participants.
Main Outcome Measures: Resting energy expenditure
and heart rate measured before gaming, during
seated gaming, and during use of 2 active gaming formats
(XaviX bowling and XaviX J-Mat; SSD Company
Ltd, Shiga, Japan). We used repeated-measures analyses
of variance to compare the outcome measures.
Results:The energy expenditurewas significantly higher
during seated gaming (mean [SD], 1.31 [0.19] kcal/
min−1; P<.001), XaviX bowling (1.89 [0.45] kcal/min−1; P<.001), and XaviX J-Mat gaming (5.23 [1.63] kcal/ min−1; P<.001) compared with rest. The energy expended above rest was significantly higher for the 2 active gaming formats (P<.001 for both) compared with seated gaming.The heart ratewas significantly higher during XaviX bowling (mean [SD, ]102 [20] beats/min−1; P<.001) and XaviX J-Mat gaming (160 [20] beats/ min−1; P<.001) compared with rest. Heart rate during theXaviXJ-Mat gaming was significantly higher than during seated gaming (P<.001). Conclusions: This study has shown that using active gaming media results in meaningful increases in energy expenditure and heart rate compared with the seated screen environment. Manipulating the gaming environment can provide children with appealing activity alternatives, and further development of “exertainment” interventions is warranted,

No comments:

Post a Comment