Playing Wii games is “not of high enough intensity to contribute towards the recommended daily amount of exercise in children”
These are the conclusions of Lee Graves, Gareth Stratton, N D Ridgers and N T Cable in their paper “Comparison of energy expenditure in adolescents when playing new generation and sedentary computer games: cross sectional study.”
They state that “activity promoting new generation active computer games significantly increased participants’ energy expenditure compared with sedentary games, but not to the same extent as the authentic sports. Further research is needed to investigate the energy demands of active gaming across sexes, ages, and consoles.”
A study is about to be carried out in a similar vein investigating whether location-based games such as LocoMatrix will fare better.
I had a vision. A cowboy. Riding at the beach. On his horse. No. On a space hopper! Next to a yodelling Austrian guy in his leather pants. They are chasing a beach ball. None of them get it. That French madame with a baguette under her arm was quicker. She hits the ball and BAM goal!