Jon Poole

Fitting in Fitness and Re-Thinking Video Gaming In a remarkable turnaround, some health experts predict children of today might actually have a potentially shorter life expectancy than their parents’ generation. That is, despite advances in medicine, education, and technology, increased accounts of obesity and associated poor health have contributed to a global epidemic with unparalleled health consequences. These concerns have led, in part, to increased interest in providing more fitness education programs in secondary settings. The Physical Best Program, available through the National Association for Sport and Physical Education, is an example of this commitment from our professional association. A typical concern, most notably in middle school and junior high settings, is the availability of fitness equipment and the space to house the equipment.

Two local schools in my own district (including my eighth grade son’s school) have found a way to “fit in fitness” by renovating a storage room and adding individual pieces of equipment (such as stationary bicycles, free weight benches, floor mats, and even pogo sticks!). While both schools are relatively new, neither was designed with a fitness room in mind. The exercise equipment, as you might guess, has been donated, purchased used, or purchased new at a discount. Some of the equipment is even personal property belonging to a few of the teachers at the school. One of the physical education teachers fondly remembers asking faculty at a school-wide meeting if anyone had an exercise machine at home, either collecting dust or serving as a place to hang laundry, that they might want to donate.

The physical education teachers at my son’s school, Blacksburg Middle School, have gradually been able to outfit their room with enough equipment to allow a modest size class of roughly 30 students the opportunity to work out in pairs, or small groups, for approximately two minutes at each of 12-15 stations. The teachers monitor student progress with workout logs and use music to pace the class. The room is a long rectangle, so students rotate around the outside of the room while the teachers monitor performance from the interior of the room. Stations are set-up to alternate between upper body (i.e., bench press, bicep curls, etc.), lower body (lunges, wall squats, etc.), and abdominal (crunches, leg raises, etc.) muscle groups, with a cardiovascular station (Schwinn air-dyne bikes, stair-stepper, etc.) interspersed throughout. One unusual, but very popular, station includes the use of pogo sticks, which is pretty vigorous activity if you haven’t tried it in a few years.

A station approach is also the typical strategy used when trying innovative video gaming technology. The amount of time children and adolescents spend in "screen time," that is, time associated with television viewing, video game playing, and surfing the internet has been linked to physical inactivity and obesity (Vandewater, Shim, & Caplovitz, 2004). The multi-billion dollar video game industry has responded with "exergames" or "exertainment" which force the player to interact with the game via movements such as dancing, boxing, running, throwing, etc. Several researchers (Lieberman, 2006; Unnithan, Houser, & Fernhall, 2005; Tan, Aziz, Chua, & The, 2002) and popular press articles (Brubaker, 2006; Kresge, 2005; Vicchrill, 2005) have reported positive health benefits. These include increased heart rates associated with aerobic workouts, reduced stress and anxiety, improved physical appearance (better weight management), enhanced self-esteem, and improved alertness and cognitive performance.

The two most prevalent models include what I like to call either the "field trip" approach or the "book mobile" approach. In the "field trip" approach, students visit a facility that has dedicated space for gaming platforms such as Dance Dance Revolution games, snowboard simulators, and Cateye Gamebike interactive bicycles among others. Many fitness centers and recreation departments are purchasing exergaming equipment to entice new members or help retain those disinterested in traditional exercise programs. The University of South Florida's exercise science program has even developed a research lab, known as the XRKade, where youngsters from nearby schools come to exercise in their dedicated interactive fitness gymnasium. The researchers hope to develop a physical education curriculum focused on interactive fitness. The weaknesses of the "field trip" approach, however, include the need for a dedicated facility, the cost associated with both the exergaming equipment and facility, and transportation concerns, among others.

Conversely, in what I am calling the "book mobile" approach, K-12 schools have the equipment brought to them typically by purchasing their own exergaming equipment and keeping the game platforms in their gymnasium or other dedicated space. While this approach makes access easier (i.e., children do not need additional transportation to a different facility), rarely do schools have the budget needed to purchase enough equipment to satisfy all the users. Likewise, rarely do schools have adequate space to dedicate to specific equipment. Often schools will purchase a single game and use a rotation schedule to expose as many youngsters as possible to the interactive fitness game. Typically this entails placing a gaming platform as a single station activity and rotating the class around several other stations during a typical physical education class period. Vicki Fielder's program is a great example of this approach and was highlighted in last month's pelinks4u Technology page. Many popular press articles describe the "book mobile" approach as innovative PE and show pictures of a few youngsters exercising, yet the majority of the class is observing and/or waiting for a turn.

The most popular arcade-style exergaming platform to reach K-12 schools in the "book mobile" approach is Konami's Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) played on a Sony Playstation. Similar styled games using other game systems, and even regular television sets, have been developed to take advantage of the popularity associated with the DDR dance pads. In a well-publicized decision supported by several sources including the governor's office, the West Virginia Department of Education provided DDR systems to over 750 public schools throughout the state. This decision was in response to positive research reports coming out of West Virginia University.

Additional studies have examined interactive games associated with other game systems, including the highly popular Nintendo Wii (Graves, Stratton, Ridgers, & Cable, 2007). An upcoming release generating great interest, at least by adults, is the Wii Fit which is specifically devoted to enhancing physical fitness components, such as flexibility and balance (with yoga/pilates) and cardiovascular endurance (it’s own version of DDR), among others. The general consensus is that exergaming is a viable physical activity option for many children, though the energy expenditure of simulated sports games is lower than playing the actual sport.

While both the "field trip" and "book mobile" approaches provide an interesting spark to traditional physical activity offerings, neither can break away from being tethered to their gaming platforms. Recent advances in technology, specifically Augmented Reality, will allow young people to break free of dedicated gaming platforms and explore their own physical world while interacting with handheld computers. As Bonsor (2001) noted, "How cool would it be to take video games outside? The game could be projected onto the real world around you, and you could, literally, be in it as one of the characters" (p.4).

While previous Augmented Reality applications focused on outdoor navigation and tourism, these "backpack" systems were cumbersome and unrealistic for young people. Advances in mobile technology including handheld computers, mobile phones, and personal digital assistants have the potential to share Augmented Reality Games with much larger audiences, including K-12 schools. A leader in advancing the use of augmented reality in K-12 schools is a colleague of mine at Radford University, Dr. Matt Dunleavy, whose previous work with the Harvard School of Education involved using handheld computers. Professor Dunleavy is profiled in a recent article discussing ROAR, the Radford Outdoor Augmented Reality Project, in which he envisions students engaged in modern day treasure hunts on the grounds surrounding schools. Students involved in these hunts will be gaining both the physical benefits of walking and running outside and academic benefits of learning content in science, math, and social studies classes.

The bottom line for physical educators is gaining a better understanding of interaction between the attractiveness of video gaming technology and the role this attractiveness plays in the adoption of healthy lifestyle behaviors. That is, what are the specific aspects of video gaming that might appeal to specific populations (i.e., boys vs. girls, etc.)? Further, how might future interactive video gaming applications take advantage of the initial attractiveness of the game to promote more physically active and healthy lifestyles? That is, we need to be careful of always having to invent new ways to entice physically active behavior when, instead, what we really want is young people and adults demonstrating physically active lifestyles because they value its contribution to their overall life.

References

Kevin Bonsor. "How Augmented Reality Will Work". February 19, 2001 http://computer.howstuffworks.com/augmented-reality.htm (January 16, 2008)

Brubaker, B. (2006). Teachers join the Dance Dance Revolution: Educators begin training to use the exercise video game. The Dominion Post, Morgantown, WV.

Kresge, N. (2005). Video games: The newest way to get kids moving and dancing to their health. Riverside Press Enterprise, Riverside, CA.

Lieberman, D.A. (2006). Dance Games and Other Exergames: What the Research Says. Report, University of California, Santa Barbara. Retrieved January 7, 2008, from http://www.comm.ucsb.edu/faculty/lieberman/exergames.htm

Reitmayer, G., & Schmalstieg, D. (2003). Collaborative augmented reality for outdoor navigation and information browsing. Retrieved January 14, 2008, from http://www.ims.tuwien.ac.at/~reitmayr/publications.html

Tan, B., Aziz, A.R., Chua, K., & The, K.C. (2002). Aerobic demands of the dance simulation game. International Journal of Sports Medicine, 23, 125-129.

Unnithan, V.B., Houser, W., & Fernhall, B. (2005). Evaluation of the energy costs of playing a dance simulation video game in overweight and non-overweight children and adolescents. International Journal of Sports Medicine, 26, 1-11.

Vicchrilli, S. (2005). Hop, jump, connect with friends: DDR: The revolution that kept games on their toes is now a thriving online community. Salt Lake Tribune, Salt Lake City, UT.

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