Walk As You Play — A Review of Exergames with Pedometers

Yoonsin Oh

Wed., June 09, 5:00–7:00, Great Hall

Obesity is a crisis in America. Thirty-four percent of adolescents in the U.S. are overweight and obese (i.e., BMI ≥ 85th percentile)(Ogden, Carroll, & Flegal, 2008). Thirty-two percent of adults are obese (i.e., BMI≥30) in the U.S. (Ogden et al., 2006). The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2009) recommend moderate physical activity like brisk walking. Sedentary behaviors have been attributed to playing videogames. Exergames, a combination of exercise and videogames (Bogost, 2007), debate the view of playing videogames as being sedentary.

This poster focuses on three particular exergames that use walking and pedometers: My Weight Loss Coach, Personal Trainer: Walking, and Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver. These games are compared from a sociocultural learning (Lave & Wenger, 1991) viewpoint of how they introduce the “walking” practice to players. The game designs and pedometers analyzed with consideration to promoting physical activity by walking. Finally, the potential use of exergames is examined by identifying the key characteristics that appear to be most efficacious, as well as those that appear to be most distracting.

References

Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (2009). Physical Activity for Everyone: Guidelines: Adults. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/physicalactivity/everyone/guidelines/adults.html.

Bogost, I. (2007). Persuasive games. Cambridge:MIT Press.

Ogden, C. L., Carroll, M. D., Curtin, L. R., McDowell, M. A., Tabak, C. J., & Flegal, K. M. (2006). Prevalence of overweight and obesity in the United States, 1999-2004. JAMA: the journal of the American Medical Association, 295(13), 1549.

Ogden, C. L., Carroll, M. D., & Flegal, K. M. (2008). High body mass index for age among US children and adolescents, 2003-2006. JAMA: the journal of the American Medical Association, 299(20), 2401.