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Assessment of functional capacity and body composition of overweight children after an aerobic exercise program using the Nintendo Wii console: A pilot study

Aline Carrasco, Ivo Ilvan Kerppers, Amanda Brunetti, Juliana Pires

Med Sci Tech 2013; 54:93-98

DOI: 10.12659/MST.889134


Background: Obesity is the fastest growing illness in the world and has increased at an alarming rate among children. Many researchers have sought strategies to reduce sedentary lifestyles among children and adolescents. Game therapy is one tool with the potential to promote physical activity, due to children’s appreciation of this type of activity. The aim of the present pilot study was to assess the effects of game therapy on the functional capacity and body composition of overweight children using a program of aerobic exercises on the Nintendo Wii console.
Material and Methods: Four overweight children, aged between 7 and 10 years, participated in the study. After a physical and functional assessment, the children underwent 16 aerobic exercise sessions using a video game on the Nintendo Wii that involved running and martial arts.
Results: At the end of the study, a reduction of body mass – from 46.62 (±5.15) kg to 45 (±4.97) kg – and BMI was recorded. Abdominal circumference also decreased from 81.62 (±6.57) cm to 79.87 (±6.55) cm and functional capacity improved.
Conclusions: These results suggest that active video games can have a positive effect on the physiological and metabolic responses of participants, thereby affecting weight loss. This should be evaluated in a study with a larger sample size.

Keywords: Child, obesity, Exercise

This paper has been published under Creative Common Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) allowing to download articles and share them with others as long as they credit the authors and the publisher, but without permission to change them in any way or use them commercially.
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