Healthy Gaming » ddr

Video games help special ed students stay fit

Chris — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 15:26:16 +0000

Special education students in 85 schools across Nebraska, including 17 in the northeast corner of the state, began utilizing the Wii Fit video games in January as part of a study to reduce child obesity. Each received a Wii Fit and components. A PlayStation 2 outfitted with the Dance Dance Revolution game and components was also part of the grant for middle school PE classes.

The video games, all of which require students to get up and be active, put a fun twist on traditional physical education classes and utilize technology that students are familiar with and enjoy.

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Digital equipment takes exercise to new level

Chris — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 19:58:23 +0000

From timesdaily.com:

New digital equipment makes it possible to hike through the Swiss Alps and take personalized spin classes any time.

Such interactive workouts offer animation and scenery to distract exercisers from their activities and entertain.

Exercise in 2009 will follow a "computerized philosophy of creating a scene," said Sybil Wilson, a commercial sales representative for Commercial Fitness in Florence.

Even stationary equipment transports its users.

Star Trac’s Stepper allows users to scale the Eiffel Tower and the Empire State Building through its Famous Steps screen.

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Grants aid schools in keeping kids healthy

Chris — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 03:41:16 +0000

From hutchnews.com:

Teachers across the state are implementing new strategies to encourage children to exercise and eat nutritious foods.
Students in Buhler are shaking their tail feathers to a popular video game for exercise; Garden City students could soon learn how to spend “fat bucks”; and the Scott County school district hopes to purchase a “spinner bike” for its students.
Those are just a few examples of new health and wellness activities offered thanks to grant money recently awarded through the Kansas Coordinated School Health Program. The program is a collaborative effort between the Kansas Department of Health and Environment and the Kansas State Department of Education.
…
She said grant money awarded last year helped purchase the “Dance Dance Revolution” video game and Sony PlayStations that are popular among the students.

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Local gym offers video game work outs to kids

Chris — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 19:39:27 +0000

From examiner.com:

Gone are the days of the chubby gamer. More and more studies are suggesting that the socially awkward, overweight gamer sterotype is a thing of the past, along with the myth that gamers are almost all male. With those tidy pieces of information shoved into your pocket, it’s almost too easy to imagine the merging of video games and fitness. It wasn’t hard for the games industry to conceptualize it either and it took them no time to jump right into that perfect pairing. Try YourSelf! Fitness, Dance Dance Revolution, Wii Sports, Wii Play and the piece d’resistance, Wii Fit. Why not include these incredibly popular video games in your normal work out routine? Or even better, why not trick children into working out? A Gold’s Gym in Colorado Springs, CO has done just that.
Located off of Union and Briargate this particular Gold’s has included a gym game room where children from ages 9 to 12 can go to play games and break a sweat. Not only is it a great asset for parents who want to work out but not pay for a babysitter, it’s hardly difficult to talk your kids into playing video games with other kids for about an hour or so. Gold’s Gym says:

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They’re game for fitness

Chris — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 15:10:53 +0000

From timesonline.com:

A study published late last year in the British Medical Journal shows exergames burn more calories than sedentary games or activities, but they don’t pack as much calorie-burning punch as the real games they’re replicating. The study, by England’s Liverpool John Moores University, involved six boys and five girls from 13 to 15 years old.

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The exergames, which include Wii video games such as tennis, bowling and baseball in addition to the recently purchased Gamebikes and Dance Dance Revolution games, will never be a focal point of Moon’s curriculum.
Instead, they will complement the program’s more traditional sports and fitness activities, said Harry Watts, a Moon Area Middle School gym teacher.
Instead of standing on the sidelines during a sports game like angleball or waiting for a turn to work out on exercise equipment or do a fitness activity, students will be able to grab a Wii game controller or jump on a GameBike to fill the down time.

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Students making ‘C’Motion’ over new fitness game

Chris — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 20:04:15 +0000

From suburbanchicagonews.com:

During a week earlier this month, Glenbard South High School’s two Peer Tutor-Adaptive Physical Education classes piloted “C’motion,” a new fitness-based digital dance gaming program. Similar to “Dance Dance Revolution“, it pairs video dance game technology and high-energy dance moves.
“It’s a way to make fitness fun,” said Karen McMillan, adaptive physical education teacher. “They’re kind of dancing without realizing it.”
The program includes two 46-inch screens and scoring pads to be used by four students at a time. Players stand on a “dance platform,” and, using musical and visual cues, use their feet to hit colored arrows laid out in a cross pattern.

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10 years of Dance Dance Revolution

Chris — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 15:40:24 +0000

From sfgate.com:

Maybe you’ve moved on to Guitar Hero or perhaps you’re playing Wii Fit now, but both games owe a debt of gratitude to Dance Dance Revolution, the dancing rhythm game from Konami that is 10 years old today.
We sort of take the game for granted because it’s been around a while but it truly was a pioneering title and the more we see casual gaming grow, we see that DDR played a good role in laying the ground work for that.
For the uninitiated, DDR challenges people to dance on a pad, hitting the various sensors in time with musical beats represented onscreen. It popularized the idea of a game based primarily on rhythm, which is basically what Guitar Hero and Rock Band are, just with different peripherals.

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