Active video games don’t increase exercise levels, study says

It turns out that virtual tennis matches and other active video games don’t lead to increased physical activity in children when compared with their couch-playing peers.

A Baylor College of Medicine study monitored the activity levels of children who played active video games on a Nintendo Wii and compared them with the activity levels of children who played sedentary games on the same game console over a 13-week period.

Researchers found that children who played active video games didn’t get significantly more exercise, even though the subjects in the active group had an average of 25–28 minutes of moderate physical activity, while the sedentary group had none.

The researchers were unsure if the results indicated that the active subjects didn’t exert much effort while they played video games or if any gains in physical activity were negated by being sedentary at other times during the day.