MSU To Study Video Game Exercise

Michigan State University received a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to study the health effects of exergames to see if they live up to their promises of health improvement. Researchers from the Department of Telecommunication, Information Studies and Media, and from the Department of Kinesiology, using overweight or inactive college students in their study, want to see if playing the games can actually help you burn calories and help overweight and inactive people to lose weight. The team is also in the works to develop a new, 3D fantasy role-playing, physically-involved but similar type of game called Mount Olympus, which requires players to move their upper and lower body in order to control their character’s movements.