Pedometer to Provide Incentive to Increase Activity Level

This is the first group that we have tried out the Omron Go Smart: The Pedometer With a Brain. I had intentions of asking several students to switch out wearing it for 30 minutes at a time, however I had one student come to me and ask if she could be the next participant to wear the pedometer because she was curious about the steps taken and calories burned when playing DDR for 30 minutes as opposed to playing Decca Sports or Punch Out on the Wii for 30 minutes because she felt that those Wii games were more of an upper body workout and not a lower body workout so she wondered if they would count steps. I was impressed that she was thinking those things through – those are the things that we, as researchers are thinking about so I had her wear the pedometer for the entire exergaming session. Because she was wearing the pedometer, her motivation to put more in to the exergame was greater. She played the DDR for longer, she played it alone when there wasn’t anyone to play with her because they were busy playing other games, and she played with great energy and enthusiasm. Research has show that wearing pedometers can provide an incentive for people to increase their activity levels in other activities, so maybe it is true in exergaming too.