Children’s Choice of Wii Sports Games and Energy Expenditure

摘要

According to a study from the Kaiser Family Foundation, total media use among all 8- to 18-year-olds was seven hours and thirty-eight minutes on a typical day (Rideout, Foehr, & Roberts, 2010). The large amount of time spent in media use has been implicated as one of the causes of the increased prevalence of obesity. The purposes of this study were to measure: 1) the total level of energy expenditure (EE) while middle school children played the Wii Sports games when given free access to all of the games, 2) the length of time they played each game, and 3) the differences in EE between games. Thirty-seven children (15 males and 22 females) with an average age of 12.4 ± 1.0 years participated in this study. Each had experience with Wii Sports. Participants were given 20 minutes to play any of the Wii Sports games they desired while their expired gases were captured by a calibrated portable metabolic cart. Heart rate was monitored with a Polar. heart rate monitor. Baseball and bowling were the most popular games. Energy expenditure was greater after playing the Wii for each game except golf. The average EE during the game playing time was 2.8 ± 0.9 kcal/min, compared to 1.4 ± 0.4 kcal/min while at rest prior to testing. Playing Wii Sports can moderately increase the EE of children over rest