Active Video Games Aren’t Exercise

Some kids (and maybe some parents) might think active games like Wii Sports are better than sitting around on a couch...and they are. Just barely.

Some kids (and parents!) probably think they’re doing themselves a favor by spending quality time with so-called “active” video games like Wii Sports rather than sitting down to another round of Halo or World of Warcraft. And a new study from the UK finds that active games do burn more calories than traditional video games…just not enough to make much of a difference.

The results of a new study published in the British Medical Journal finds that kids who play active video games burn at least 51 percent more calories than kids playing so-called “idle” video games, but the overall impact on hourly energy expenditure is less than 2 percent.

“Playing new generation active computer games uses significantly more energy than playing sedentary computer games,” the researchers concluded, “but not as much energy as playing the sport itself. The energy used when playing active Wii Sports games was not of high enough intensity to contribute towards the recommended daily amount of exercise in children.”

The study compared the energy expenditure of eleven physically fit teens from ages 13 to 15 playing Wii Sports components and Project Gotham Racing.

Although the results should not be interpreted to mean its impossible to expend a meaningful amount of energy on some games—Dance Dance Revolution comes to mind, and while Rock Band’s drum kit is a toy real drummers can burn upwards of 500 calories an hour, so maybe Rock Band can outdo Wii Sports Tennis. Similarly, the study did not look at Wii Fit, Nintendo’s home fitness title (already available in Japan and coming to the U.S. in early 2008). Another factor occasionally cited in regard to the amount of energy expended by players of “active” games is (believe it or not) screen size: players with small television screens are less likely to be exuberant players of active games because, if they hop around or wave their arms too much, they lose track of what they’re doing.