couch standing or outside?

This article has got my attention very fast it has to do with a study of a little bit heavier kids playing the Wii activity games to see if they are meeting the daily exercise requirements according to a U.S. study the article states. This article states the researcher’s from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas discovered that kids who were playing “active video games to play on the Nintendo Wii did not get any more vigorous physical activity then kids just playing on the couch. So this got my attention fast as I was trying to think how a game where you need to stand up and move your arms and body in some cases does not help you get any more physical activity then sitting on the couch. To do this study they gave 78 kids a Wii console and gave half a choice of active games and the other half none active games halfway through gave then new choices of the same type of game to the same kids. The person behind all this is Mr. Baranowski who tracked the kids for 13 weeks testing their physical levels using a machines called a accelerometer, this machine determines when they were in a lightly exercising or engaged in moderate to vigorous exercise as stated in the article. This machine showed that the kids who played the active games did not get any more exercises then the ones however this was said maybe due to the kids being tired so they did not do their usually activities as much but however since the kids are playing an active game and using their arms they must be losing more calories than the kids sitting on the couch.
Now after going through all this the article questions was does the Wii help some kids get the daily amount of exercise? Now the only thing that came to mine mind was why are these kids not going outside and playing sport? At the age between 9 and 12 each and every day after school I would go home and shoot some hoops play some hockey or ride my bike for a few hours even as I got older I still did this now not so much but I would not mind going outside shooting on my net it’s a blast it does not matter the season or the weather conditions however my dad did care about the condition the garage was at since I occasionally missed the net, but still why are these kids playing games when they should be outside riding bikes playing sports when they can if I could I would why not it’s a fun time now even if some kids don’t like sports just being outside walking around is better than sitting in front of a T.V all day playing a game or even playing a so called active game kids need to get outside and get some fresh air and get some exercise and some skill they can show off in their next time in gym class or playing with their friends.

feel free to comment on this post i will post back if your point is good enough

Link to this  Globe mail