5/26/2005
Video Games, Fitness, Medicine Team Up
By Redmond Carolipio, Staff Writer
LeahJoy needs water. And she needs it now.
Jumping around and waving your hands and arms in circular motions (think "wax on, wax off') for 10 minutes can make a 7-year-old thirsty.
"She never stops,' says her mother, Sharee Kamnerdsiri of Banning.
It's May 10, and this is the last Kid Fit class at Beaver Medical Group in Redlands until fall. But this last session is different a PlayStation 2 and Xbox are involved.
An end-of-class treat?
Nope it's a workout. Within minutes, games on both systems have about 10 kids sweating up a storm.
"I like games like this 'cause usually I'm just sitting around watching TV,' says Alexandria Degortari, 9, a third-grader at Cram Elementary School in Highland.
Her face is still red from her experience with "Dance Dance Revolution' on Microsoft's Xbox.
"If I do something for like an hour, I get bored,' says 11-year-old Mariam Farah, a sixth-grader at Redlands Christian Academy who lists "bacon cheeseburger' as one of her favorite foods. "This stuff is fun. I play like, 30 minutes a day.'
The worlds of video games, fitness and medicine have united under the banner of "exertainment' a fusion of electronic entertainment and exercise that is catching on nationwide in the face of the childhood obesity epidemic.
As science and medicine begin studying the potential benefits of exertainment, the fitness and game industries look to overcome past failures. Game companies want to shed their image as one of childhood obesity's cultural culprits. Others are working to create facilities loaded with games and machines that promote fitness.
The Sun examined the childhood obesity epidemic and possible solutions in its four-day series, "Table to Grave,' which ran early this month. Nine million children in the United States are overweight or obese. Since the 1970s, obesity in U.S. children ages 6 to 11 has tripled. It has doubled among adolescents.
"We need to start looking at games as an asset, not a curse,' said Dr. James "Butch' Rosser, a New York laparoscopic surgeon who attended the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles last week. "This is how we're going to get the kids.'
Research - it's in the game
Rosser is just one of several people in the medical field tuned in to the fitness potential of gaming.
George Graham and Stephen Yang o f Penn State University conducted a study this year measuring the heart rate of children who played "Dance Dance Revolution' for 45 minutes.
"We found that the kids had an average heart rate of 144 beats per minute' when playing, said Graham, a professor of kinesiology. "The average resting heart rate is about 60 to 70 beats per minute.'
An increased heart rate means an increased metabolism, which helps people burn more calories.
Graham said many of the traditional answers for getting children to exercise simply don't work.
"You hear solutions like 'walk with your parents' or 'ride your bike' well, teens aren't going to do that,' Graham said. "When they ride their bike, it's to go somewhere and do something else. We have to realize that for many of these kids, video games are the only way they're going to do anything active.'
Other universities are checking out the relationships between gaming and exercise. West Virginia University is conducting a six-month study of children using "Dance Dance Revolution' and coordinating with the state Public Employees Insurance Agency to examine the possibility of cutting claim costs from obesity.
Bryan Haddock, an associate professor of kinesiology at Cal State San Bernardino, plans a summer study with Riverside-based game company QMotions on how exertainment products can affect childhood obesity.
"You hear video games get labeled as a problem,' Haddock said. "What we want to do is take this 'problem' and use it to help kids lose weight.'
Some doctors actually get into video game production itself.
Rosser attended the international trade show in L.A. to promote "Escape from Obeez City,' an interactive DVD that educates children and teens about the nutritional workings of the body. Rosser himself plays a character in the game called Dr. Bludd, who functions as a sort of mission controller for the game's heroes, called the Body Mechanics. It's a question-based game where players' correct answers help the Body Mechanics' fight the Coalition of Harm and Decay inside an obese man's body.
Rosser said products like this specialize in what he called "covert learning.'
"Because 'class' isn't fun, in this game, we have 'missions' and rewards,' he said. "It's like the hook of a good rap song we need something that pulls you in.' Gaming takes notice
Two of the gaming industry's biggest companies are working on doing that.
Sony Computer Entertainment features the EyeToy, which debuted in 2003.
It's a small camera that plugs into the PlayStation 2 game console, essentially making the person in front of the camera the focus of the game. The player can then interact with anything that shows up on screen. According to Sony, the EyeToy has sold 1.4 million units in the United States and more than 7 million worldwide.
There are three games available for the EyeToy, and Sony plans to release three more this year. One of those games is "EyeToy: Kinetic.' It is the EyeToy's first fitness-oriented game, featuring a calorie counter, virtual trainer and settings for various exercise disciplines like yoga and kickboxing.
But if there's one gaming franchise leading the fitness charge, it's Konami's "Dance Dance Revolution,' known simply as "DDR.' It has proven to be a hit on both the PlayStation 2 and the Xbox. The game has gained a large chunk of its popularity in the fitness world because of testimonials from people who have lost weight playing it. And the academic and medical communities often use it as the centerpiece for their research.
Jason Enos, Konami's product manager for the game, said the benefits of games such as "Dance Dance Revolution' also reach a larger market of parents and educators.
"There are so many schools that want to try and bring in DDR,' he said. "And more health clubs either already have it or are planning on getting it.'
The big dogs of the video game industry aren't the only ones doing their part in trying to promote the union of games and fitness.
QMotions also had a presence at last week's expo and showed off its "FunFitness' add-ons for cycles, treadmills and elliptical machines that allow people working out to interact with games on their personal computer and Xbox.
Amro Albanna, CEO of QMotions, said his company's booth was tucked away from the din of the Sonys, Microsofts and Nintendos, but the response he got was "huge.'
"I think people are realizing that video games are here to stay,' he said. "We had a blast at the show We would have been lost if we were in one of the other halls.'
Several fitness equipment companies also have been successful in combining exercise machines with many of today's games. One of them is Cateye Fitness, which produces the Gamebike, capable of using more than 70 existing games for the Xbox, PlayStation 2 and Nintendo Gamecube.
"A 45-minute workout is over like that,' said a finger-snapping Don Payne, regional sales manager for Cateye. "Our question was: 'How do we, in fitness, get the kids?''
It's a question that has taken both sides quite some time to answer. Before the revolution
Exertainment isn't a brand-new concept, and it's been around long enough to see its share of failures.
On the gaming side, perhaps the best-known example is Nintendo's Power Pad, which was packaged with the original Nintendo Entertainment System in 1988.
The Power Pad was essentially a floor mat littered with blue and red dots that plugged into the game console like a controller.
The idea was to use your feet, and players did so when they put in games such as "World Class Track Meet' and "Dance Aerobics.' But the Power Pad never hit it big. It was too small for some adults or teens to enjoy, and young gamers also resorted to pounding on the dots with their hands, practically eliminating the "running' experience.
Konami's Enos points to the combination of colorful graphics and thumping music as one of the biggest reasons behind the appeal of "Dance Dance Revolution,' which has sold about 8 million copies worldwide, including roughly 3 million in the United States.
Nintendo spokeswoman Beth Llewelyn pointed to culture and technology as the main differences between the time of the Power Pad and today.
"The musical capabilities of today's video game machines are a lot more sophisticated than they were in 1988,' she said. 'People are more likely to get up and dance to something that sounds like real music.'
Nintendo itself has caught the "Dance Dance Revolution' bug. It plans in October to introduce "Dance Dance Revolution: Mario Mix' for use with the Gamecube, complete with workout mode.
In the mid-1990s, the exercise equipment maker LifeFitness introduced an exercise bike actually called the "Exertainment System.' It featured an adapter to work with the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Cateye's Payne pointed to two factors that led to the machine's downfall.
One was sticker shock the LifeFitness bike cost about $3,500.
"That's pricey for a lot of people,' Payne said. "There was a also a company called Tetrix that put out something that went for $7,000.'
Payne said companies like LifeFitness and the now-defunct Tetrix made the mistake of trying to develop games solely for the machines. The result was one that is common in the gaming industry high-cost systems with almost no games to play on them.
"It takes a lot of (research and development) money to make a game,' Payne said. "What we did was design hardware, not software, to be compatible with existing titles.'
QMotions' Albanna said that when a company prices home items too high, it loses out on both the gaming and fitness markets.
"The serious fitness person will say, 'I'm already used to one brand name of equipment, why would I want this?'' he said. "And you can be pretty sure that a gamer isn't going to spend $3,000 on an exercise machine.'
Instead, some are working to bring the machines and equipment to the masses. Places in the works
Ernie Medina Jr., the preventive care specialist in Redlands who started the Kid Fit class, wants to bring exertainment to the Inland Empire.
Medina is gathering investor money for his proposed XRTainment Zone, a center loaded with machines and games that "makes fitness fun for kids.'
He wants to open the first one in Redlands, hopefully in the fall. His shopping list includes the Cateye Gamebike, "Dance Dance Revolution,' and Makoto, a small arena that company vice president Marian Bower calls "Simon meets Whack-A-Mole.'
"We want to make sure we have all our money in the bank before we start looking for a site,' Medina said.
"My dream would be something like the holodeck in 'Star Trek.' That's the ultimate in exertainment,' he said. "But we don't have the technology yet, so this is as close as we can get.'
On the other side of the country, Alex Erlich is working to open a similar center. Erlich's Energy Factory will debut in Tenafly, N.J., in the middle of June.
Both he and Medina said they've faced plenty of challenges along the way, such as a general misunderstanding or unawareness of the exertainment concept.
"Parents have their own idea of what fitness is. It's either what they're used to doing, like riding a bike, or competitive sports,' Erlich said. "The thinking is, 'It's better for my kid to hang out in right field and stare at the daisies than to try this.' '
The two said the demand is growing for places such as the Energy Factory and the XRTainment Zone.
"We want to take an unhealthy addiction and use it,' Erlich said. "We're aiming for the great mass of kids out there.'
Medina hopes his concept of an exertainment center encourages people to be more open-minded about how their children get exercise.
"Instead of people pointing to the games and saying, 'This is the enemy,' we're saying, 'If you're going to be playing video games all day, play these games.'
LeahJoy needs water. And she needs it now.
Jumping around and waving your hands and arms in circular motions (think "wax on, wax off') for 10 minutes can make a 7-year-old thirsty.
"She never stops,' says her mother, Sharee Kamnerdsiri of Banning.
It's May 10, and this is the last Kid Fit class at Beaver Medical Group in Redlands until fall. But this last session is different a PlayStation 2 and Xbox are involved.
An end-of-class treat?
Nope it's a workout. Within minutes, games on both systems have about 10 kids sweating up a storm.
"I like games like this 'cause usually I'm just sitting around watching TV,' says Alexandria Degortari, 9, a third-grader at Cram Elementary School in Highland.
Her face is still red from her experience with "Dance Dance Revolution' on Microsoft's Xbox.
"If I do something for like an hour, I get bored,' says 11-year-old Mariam Farah, a sixth-grader at Redlands Christian Academy who lists "bacon cheeseburger' as one of her favorite foods. "This stuff is fun. I play like, 30 minutes a day.'
The worlds of video games, fitness and medicine have united under the banner of "exertainment' a fusion of electronic entertainment and exercise that is catching on nationwide in the face of the childhood obesity epidemic.
As science and medicine begin studying the potential benefits of exertainment, the fitness and game industries look to overcome past failures. Game companies want to shed their image as one of childhood obesity's cultural culprits. Others are working to create facilities loaded with games and machines that promote fitness.
The Sun examined the childhood obesity epidemic and possible solutions in its four-day series, "Table to Grave,' which ran early this month. Nine million children in the United States are overweight or obese. Since the 1970s, obesity in U.S. children ages 6 to 11 has tripled. It has doubled among adolescents.
"We need to start looking at games as an asset, not a curse,' said Dr. James "Butch' Rosser, a New York laparoscopic surgeon who attended the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles last week. "This is how we're going to get the kids.'
Research - it's in the game
Rosser is just one of several people in the medical field tuned in to the fitness potential of gaming.
George Graham and Stephen Yang o f Penn State University conducted a study this year measuring the heart rate of children who played "Dance Dance Revolution' for 45 minutes.
"We found that the kids had an average heart rate of 144 beats per minute' when playing, said Graham, a professor of kinesiology. "The average resting heart rate is about 60 to 70 beats per minute.'
An increased heart rate means an increased metabolism, which helps people burn more calories.
Graham said many of the traditional answers for getting children to exercise simply don't work.
"You hear solutions like 'walk with your parents' or 'ride your bike' well, teens aren't going to do that,' Graham said. "When they ride their bike, it's to go somewhere and do something else. We have to realize that for many of these kids, video games are the only way they're going to do anything active.'
Other universities are checking out the relationships between gaming and exercise. West Virginia University is conducting a six-month study of children using "Dance Dance Revolution' and coordinating with the state Public Employees Insurance Agency to examine the possibility of cutting claim costs from obesity.
Bryan Haddock, an associate professor of kinesiology at Cal State San Bernardino, plans a summer study with Riverside-based game company QMotions on how exertainment products can affect childhood obesity.
"You hear video games get labeled as a problem,' Haddock said. "What we want to do is take this 'problem' and use it to help kids lose weight.'
Some doctors actually get into video game production itself.
Rosser attended the international trade show in L.A. to promote "Escape from Obeez City,' an interactive DVD that educates children and teens about the nutritional workings of the body. Rosser himself plays a character in the game called Dr. Bludd, who functions as a sort of mission controller for the game's heroes, called the Body Mechanics. It's a question-based game where players' correct answers help the Body Mechanics' fight the Coalition of Harm and Decay inside an obese man's body.
Rosser said products like this specialize in what he called "covert learning.'
"Because 'class' isn't fun, in this game, we have 'missions' and rewards,' he said. "It's like the hook of a good rap song we need something that pulls you in.' Gaming takes notice
Two of the gaming industry's biggest companies are working on doing that.
Sony Computer Entertainment features the EyeToy, which debuted in 2003.
It's a small camera that plugs into the PlayStation 2 game console, essentially making the person in front of the camera the focus of the game. The player can then interact with anything that shows up on screen. According to Sony, the EyeToy has sold 1.4 million units in the United States and more than 7 million worldwide.
There are three games available for the EyeToy, and Sony plans to release three more this year. One of those games is "EyeToy: Kinetic.' It is the EyeToy's first fitness-oriented game, featuring a calorie counter, virtual trainer and settings for various exercise disciplines like yoga and kickboxing.
But if there's one gaming franchise leading the fitness charge, it's Konami's "Dance Dance Revolution,' known simply as "DDR.' It has proven to be a hit on both the PlayStation 2 and the Xbox. The game has gained a large chunk of its popularity in the fitness world because of testimonials from people who have lost weight playing it. And the academic and medical communities often use it as the centerpiece for their research.
Jason Enos, Konami's product manager for the game, said the benefits of games such as "Dance Dance Revolution' also reach a larger market of parents and educators.
"There are so many schools that want to try and bring in DDR,' he said. "And more health clubs either already have it or are planning on getting it.'
The big dogs of the video game industry aren't the only ones doing their part in trying to promote the union of games and fitness.
QMotions also had a presence at last week's expo and showed off its "FunFitness' add-ons for cycles, treadmills and elliptical machines that allow people working out to interact with games on their personal computer and Xbox.
Amro Albanna, CEO of QMotions, said his company's booth was tucked away from the din of the Sonys, Microsofts and Nintendos, but the response he got was "huge.'
"I think people are realizing that video games are here to stay,' he said. "We had a blast at the show We would have been lost if we were in one of the other halls.'
Several fitness equipment companies also have been successful in combining exercise machines with many of today's games. One of them is Cateye Fitness, which produces the Gamebike, capable of using more than 70 existing games for the Xbox, PlayStation 2 and Nintendo Gamecube.
"A 45-minute workout is over like that,' said a finger-snapping Don Payne, regional sales manager for Cateye. "Our question was: 'How do we, in fitness, get the kids?''
It's a question that has taken both sides quite some time to answer. Before the revolution
Exertainment isn't a brand-new concept, and it's been around long enough to see its share of failures.
On the gaming side, perhaps the best-known example is Nintendo's Power Pad, which was packaged with the original Nintendo Entertainment System in 1988.
The Power Pad was essentially a floor mat littered with blue and red dots that plugged into the game console like a controller.
The idea was to use your feet, and players did so when they put in games such as "World Class Track Meet' and "Dance Aerobics.' But the Power Pad never hit it big. It was too small for some adults or teens to enjoy, and young gamers also resorted to pounding on the dots with their hands, practically eliminating the "running' experience.
Konami's Enos points to the combination of colorful graphics and thumping music as one of the biggest reasons behind the appeal of "Dance Dance Revolution,' which has sold about 8 million copies worldwide, including roughly 3 million in the United States.
Nintendo spokeswoman Beth Llewelyn pointed to culture and technology as the main differences between the time of the Power Pad and today.
"The musical capabilities of today's video game machines are a lot more sophisticated than they were in 1988,' she said. 'People are more likely to get up and dance to something that sounds like real music.'
Nintendo itself has caught the "Dance Dance Revolution' bug. It plans in October to introduce "Dance Dance Revolution: Mario Mix' for use with the Gamecube, complete with workout mode.
In the mid-1990s, the exercise equipment maker LifeFitness introduced an exercise bike actually called the "Exertainment System.' It featured an adapter to work with the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Cateye's Payne pointed to two factors that led to the machine's downfall.
One was sticker shock the LifeFitness bike cost about $3,500.
"That's pricey for a lot of people,' Payne said. "There was a also a company called Tetrix that put out something that went for $7,000.'
Payne said companies like LifeFitness and the now-defunct Tetrix made the mistake of trying to develop games solely for the machines. The result was one that is common in the gaming industry high-cost systems with almost no games to play on them.
"It takes a lot of (research and development) money to make a game,' Payne said. "What we did was design hardware, not software, to be compatible with existing titles.'
QMotions' Albanna said that when a company prices home items too high, it loses out on both the gaming and fitness markets.
"The serious fitness person will say, 'I'm already used to one brand name of equipment, why would I want this?'' he said. "And you can be pretty sure that a gamer isn't going to spend $3,000 on an exercise machine.'
Instead, some are working to bring the machines and equipment to the masses. Places in the works
Ernie Medina Jr., the preventive care specialist in Redlands who started the Kid Fit class, wants to bring exertainment to the Inland Empire.
Medina is gathering investor money for his proposed XRTainment Zone, a center loaded with machines and games that "makes fitness fun for kids.'
He wants to open the first one in Redlands, hopefully in the fall. His shopping list includes the Cateye Gamebike, "Dance Dance Revolution,' and Makoto, a small arena that company vice president Marian Bower calls "Simon meets Whack-A-Mole.'
"We want to make sure we have all our money in the bank before we start looking for a site,' Medina said.
"My dream would be something like the holodeck in 'Star Trek.' That's the ultimate in exertainment,' he said. "But we don't have the technology yet, so this is as close as we can get.'
On the other side of the country, Alex Erlich is working to open a similar center. Erlich's Energy Factory will debut in Tenafly, N.J., in the middle of June.
Both he and Medina said they've faced plenty of challenges along the way, such as a general misunderstanding or unawareness of the exertainment concept.
"Parents have their own idea of what fitness is. It's either what they're used to doing, like riding a bike, or competitive sports,' Erlich said. "The thinking is, 'It's better for my kid to hang out in right field and stare at the daisies than to try this.' '
The two said the demand is growing for places such as the Energy Factory and the XRTainment Zone.
"We want to take an unhealthy addiction and use it,' Erlich said. "We're aiming for the great mass of kids out there.'
Medina hopes his concept of an exertainment center encourages people to be more open-minded about how their children get exercise.
"Instead of people pointing to the games and saying, 'This is the enemy,' we're saying, 'If you're going to be playing video games all day, play these games.'
