Can Wii Do It?

[Patrick]

"A university lecturer has been given £5,000 to study the health benefits of the Nintendo Wii. Michael Duncan will work with schoolchildren for six weeks to see if the popular games console can improve fitness and tackle obesity.

Half of the children in the study will play Wii games, such as tennis, golf and boxing, during their school lunch break. The remainder will take part in their normal lunch-hour activities. All pupils will be fitted with an accelerometer that measures energy use from jumps, side turns and other movements. Duncan, a senior lecturer in exercise physiology at the University of Derby, hopes his research will determine whether computer games can benefit children."

Can anyone else see the beginning of a whole new set of excuses for children to stay in??

[Alpha Hooligan]

I suppose the more advanced games get, the more people who play them will need to be active...now we have the wii which involves swinging the little paddle around, but before that, we had those "dance" games where you spent hours stomping around on a mat to get the steps right.

The future of computer games could get very interesting.


AH

[rjpageuk]

If some kids get more exercise playing on the Wii than normal lunch hour activities then they couldnt be doing much in their normal activities.

The boxing is pretty tiring but the others you hardly move at all for.

The Wii is great btw.