Competitive active video games: Physiological and psychological responses in children and adolescents.
BACKGROUND Recent strategies to reduce sedentary behaviour in children include replacing sedentary screen time for active video games. Active video game studies have focused principally on the metabolic consumption of a single player, with physiological and psychological responses of opponent based multiplayer games to be further evaluated. OBJECTIVE To determine whether adding a competitive component to playing active video games impacts physiological and psychological responses in players. METHODS Sixty two healthy Caucasian children and adolescents, nine to 14 years years of age, completed three conditions (8 min each) in random order: treadmill walking, and single and opponent based Kinect active video games. Affect, arousal, rate of perceived exertion, heart rate and percentage of heart rate reserve were measured for each participant and condition. RESULTS Kinect conditions revealed significantly higher heart rate, percentage of heart rate reserve, rate of perceived exertion and arousal when compared with treadmill walking (P<0.001) Opponent based condition revealed lower values for the rate of perceived exertion (P=0.02) and higher affect (P=0.022) when compared with single play. CONCLUSION Competitive active video games improved children's psychological responses (affect and rate of perceived exertion) compared with single play, providing a solution that may contribute toward improved adherence to physical activity.
Paediatrics child health