Video games don't make you fat? · 26 January 06
West Virginia, a state which suffers one of the worst youth obesity problems in the USA, is expanding a project that uses a video game to boost students’ physical activity.
All of the state’s 157 middle schools are expecting to get the video game, Dance Dance Revolution this school year. Officials then hope to put it in all 753 West Virginian public schools within the next three years. A pilot project began in 20 schools last spring and is apparently going very well. It is also generating a larger cash flow for the school board, all in quarters, than was ever anticipated.
- Nearly 46% of 31,000 West Virginian fifth-graders screened in a coronary artery risk project between 1999-2005 were considered overweight or obese, according to the Institute of Medicine guidelines.
- In Alberta 22% of children and adolescents are overweight or obese, according to the Southern Alberta Child & Youth Health Network.