Tackling childhood obesity with games consoles
Following on from our advice on how games console can help your patients, interactive games are now being recommended to tackle the increasing problem of childhood obesity.
Although computers and games console are one of the main reasons for the increase in overweight children, plying them away from their games is proving difficult.
The concept understands that encouraging children to get outside and exercise is far more difficult than incorporating exercising into their games consoles.
It has been predicted that using an interactive games console increases calorie burning by 42% when compared to a normal games console. By playing 60 minutes of an interactive games console everyday over a year, a child will burn 7.5lbs of body fat.
The recommended minimum amount of exercise is 30 minutes three times a week, but an increase in sedentary lifestyles means children are now spending more time playing on computers and games consoles.
The Nintendo Wii was the first interactive games console and has lead the way for people to play games, while at the same time keep active and loose weight. Nintendo further enhanced the Wii with the Wii Fit and Balance Board.
The ability to play a variety of sports and carry out exercises, including tennis, running, yoga, bowling, boxing and step aerobics on the Nintendo Wii Fit from your front room makes exercising more accessible than ever before.
Childhood obesity has increase dramatically over the past 10 years, particularly in boys which has seen obesity increase from 0.9% in 1995 to 17.3% in 2006 and obesity in girls increasing from 12% to 14.7%.
The idea has recently been taken up in the East Midlands with a pilot scheme involving providing 15 overweight children with Nintendo Wii Fits to loose weight. The scheme is run between GameCity, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham University Hospital and the Department of Health.
Read more about how games console can help your patients and the steps they should take to avoid injury.