Active: Game for a workout

Titles such as Wii Fit are selling in their millions, as households turn their living rooms into virtual gyms, tennis courts and dance studios. More than 4m copies of Zumba Fitness have been bought worldwide, with 1m copies sold in Britain and Ireland alone. Just Dance has sold 15m copies.

Last month, a survey of 1,015 adults by UnitedHealth Group, an American insurer, found that more than half of respondents thought physical video games encouraged us to be more active. A further 60% of people said their children should play them in addition to traditional exercise. But can exergames really make you fit?

Karl Henry, a Dublin-based personal trainer, thinks so. He uses exergames when working with families. “There are big problems with childhood obesity, and video games are now one of the big tools in helping to prevent it,” he says.

“We get a lot of emails saying, ‘My child is overweight, please come and train them,’ but that’s not what we do. We would meet the family and look at their lifestyles and diets. We would then suggest using the consoles to help a family get fit together,” he says.

Henry says parents are often shocked to learn that active games exist. “Kids are buying other games and the parents don’t know what is out there. Often the adults will get into playing exergames because the dad will be competitive and the mother likes the fun element of dance or zumba routines.

“For a family unit, they can be a fun activity, and children are learning to move more, improve their balance and co-ordination.”

Jessica Maybury, a 27-year-old author and blogger from Malahide in Dublin, laughs when asked whether she exercises regularly. “Would I consider myself a sporty person? Oh God, no,” she says.

Yet Maybury is a fan of Your Shape, which she plays using the hands-free control system Kinect on the Xbox. Before Kinect, she had never played any exercise games. “The thing about exercising at home is that you might have a tendency to do it inadequately. But with these games, if you don’t do it properly, they will correct you.”

Boredom is cited as one of the main reasons why many gym memberships go unused. Combining working out with something you enjoy makes it more likely for some to succeed.

Maybury likes the affordability and flexibility of her virtual exercise routine.

“You don’t need to do anything apart from move the coffee table and, unlike gyms, there are no fees once you have the console and games. Extra downloadable content keeps it fresh and the longer you play, the harder it gets.”

But not everybody thinks virtual workouts are as good as the real thing. Gillian Hynes, a Dublin-based personal trainer, says exercise games can be useful for some people if used “enough and vigorously”, but she considers them one level up from fitness DVDs. “The added benefit over DVDs is that games include motion sensors that help to ensure that you perform the moves properly, but they are far from an ideal fitness solution,” she says. “For most people, after a flurry of initial use, the enthusiasm wanes and these are left gathering dust.”

Hynes says children should not use the games as a substitute for getting outside. “Kids should be outside playing football, not playing it in a living room. Generally, I would always favour outdoor exercise, and getting involved in something you are likely to stick to. Exergames fail on both these counts.”

Scientists are also divided on the issue. Last year, two separate academic studies researched the pros and cons of exergaming before arriving at different conclusions. Research by Queensland University of Technology in Australia found that people who used Wii Fit regularly lost 2cm-3cm from their waistlines and felt more motivated after a trial. Conversely, studies at Baylor College of Medicine in Texas found that there was no difference in the calorie-burn for children playing sedentary games from those playing active ones.

The scientific jury may still be out, but exergames are, on the whole, considered a good development. This, and the generous money on offer, explains why celebrities and athletes are happy to promote them. Kaka, the Brazilian football player, Jessica Ennis, the British athlete, José Mourinho, the manager of Real Madrid, and tennis player Ana Ivanovic have lent their names to games. Celebrities such as the Girls Aloud singer Sarah Harding and model Nell McAndrew have all endorsed them.

Dame Helen Mirren, the actress, was reportedly paid £500,000 (€624,000) by Nintendo to appear in an advert for Wii Fit Plus. Louie Spence, of Dancing on Ice fame, backed Xbox’s Dance Central, while former Spice Girl Mel B took things a step further by launching her own game, Get Fit with Mel B.

Fitness games often mimic real-life classes and workouts using professional trainers and nutritionists to ensure that they are safe and effective.

Model Daniella Moyles got her first experience of Dance Central during a recent promotional event for the Xbox in Dublin. “Before I got here, I thought that video games were for teenage boys,” she says. “I didn’t know that I could get stuff that is fun and dance-related. I love Dance Central. I never realised you could get fit playing Xbox.”

Meanwhile, we can expect yet more exergaming titles because game developers themselves are big fans of the genre. Martin Sahlin, a creative director at Swedish games studio Coldwood Interactive, which works with Sony, says he gets so involved in games such as Move Fitness, which his firm developed, he forgets he is working out.

“At the studio we have iron-man competitions. The office champion at Sony lost 5lb playing the game over a two-month period. What we’ve learnt is that fitness in itself is not complicated. It’s very simple — eating better and exercising more. Keeping active and keeping moving is what’s beneficial.”

‘Don’t play too hard’

Think that working out in front of your flatscreen television is all fun and games? Well, think again. Exergames, while being fun and relaxed, have resulted in a small number of injuries among eager users.

In 2010, Charlotte Everiss, 33, from Walsall in the West Midlands developed a potentially fatal blood clot after breaking her foot while playing a dance game on her Wii.

Other reported injuries include a 14-year-old British girl who suffered a fracture in her foot, and a 16-year-old boy who was rushed to hospital after fracturing his knee.

Shortly after the Wii was launched, clinical researchers at Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust in Britain noted that doctors were seeing cases of patients with what they termed “Wii-itis”. A report found that “Nintendinitis” of the 1990s related to thumb and tendon pain, but Wii-itis often involved foot injuries.

A report catalogued a series of injuries sustained from playing exergames, including soft-tissue swelling, muscle pulls and even small fractures. Risks included falling off balance boards and also being accidentally struck due to the games being played vigorously in confined spaces.

Thankfully, researchers say the number of cases is still relatively small and most of those injured were unlucky.