The energy expenditure of an activity-promoting video game compared to sedentary video games and TV watching.

BACKGROUND: In the present study we investigated the effect of television watching and the use of activity-promoting video games on energy expenditure in obese and lean children.

METHODS: Energy expenditure and physical activity were measured while participants were watching television, playing a video game on a traditional sedentary video game console, and while playing the same video game on an activity-promoting video game console.

RESULTS: Energy expenditure was significantly greater than television watching and playing video games on a sedentary video game console when children played the video game on the activity-promoting console. When examining movement with accelerometry, children moved significantly more when playing the video game on the Nintendo Wii console.

CONCLUSION: Activity-promoting video games have shown to increase movement, and be an important tool to raise energy expenditure by 50% when compared to sedentary activities of daily living.