By Jim Davis
barefoot Emma Carte watches a cartoon blond girl dancing on the television screen in her Morgantown home and tries to copy her routine.
Meanwhile, sensors in the mat she dances on record her every move, adding and deducting points based on how many steps she gets right.
“It’s fun,” the ten-year-old says of Dance Dance Revolution, a fast-paced video game sweeping the nation.
What Emma calls fun may also be good for her, say WVU researchers studying if video games blamed for turning kids into Brobdingnagian couch potatoes can get them on their feet and physically active as well.
Linda Carson, the Ware Distinguished Professor in the School of Physical Education, is spearheading research into the health benefits of playing Dance Dance Revolution, or DDR. The West Virginia Public Employees Insurance Agency is funding the study.
Other researchers are Drs. William Neal and Irma Ullrich from the School of Medicine; Rachel Yeater, chair of the Division of Exercise Physiology; Guyton Hornsby, associate professor of exercise physiology; David Donley, assistant professor of exercise physiology; and Emily Murphy, Extension specialist.
“In my whole career, I’ve not seen something that has an appeal to a wide age range and can sustain interest in physical activity the way this does,” Carson says.
Popular at arcades and as a home video game, DDR features songs and corresponding video with a continuous stream of arrows instructing players where to move their feet on the “smart” pad. It has three playing levels, and a grading scale ranging from AA to F.
“I like how you try to get better and better at it like any other game, and then you feel really proud of yourself when you see you’re making good grades on it,” Emma says.
It is this fun-and-games view of DDR that is its beauty, Carson notes. As far as children are concerned, they are playing a game. Consequently, they get a workout without knowing it.
“Today’s children have grown up with screen time—TVs, computers, and hand-held devices,” she explains. “Many health experts have said screen time has been part of the problem with childhood obesity.
“What makes this game unique is it is played with your feet instead of your thumbs, so you become more active,” she adds. “What we’ve done is take what children relate to and consider that it could be part of the solution.”
The nine-month study involves 85 children ages seven through 12 who are either overweight or at risk of becoming so. Because PEIA is funding the project, the study is restricted to children whose parents are enrolled in the PEIA PBB primary health plans.
Half the children receive immediate instruction in DDR, a home version of the game to play, and envelopes in which to mail their progress with the game. The remaining children receive the game to take home after the second 12 weeks, at which time they must report their progress while the initial study group is no longer monitored.
All of the children undergo physical exams at the outset and three and six months later.
By examining the children every three months, researchers are able to determine both the health benefits of DDR and whether children are continuing to play the game, Carson says.
Early results have been promising, she notes.
“The children are staying with the program, and I think that speaks to the nature of the video game,” she says. “The families are also reporting that their children are losing weight and aren’t as tired.”
Emma Carte can back that up.
Accepted into the study as borderline overweight, she has lost one pound and two inches off her waist and hips since starting. More importantly, stress tests have shown her fitness levels have improved.
And she has no plans to stop playing the game because—as she says—“it’s fun.”