On the Sunday just before V-day, we started our first study with Cal State San Bernardino (CSUSB) at Beaver Medical Group (my day job). Dr. Bryan Haddock and I have been talking about doing this for years. Everytime we would sit together at annual conferences, listening to presentations on pediatric obesity, we would would say that we needed to be up there presenting on exertainment. Well now we are on our way! Here we had about 30 kids come in with the parents for this orientation session where they filled out paperwork and had a chance to play the games so they would know what to do when the real testing started.
Dr. Haddock is showing the kids the mask and the sensor they will be wearing whle playing the video games. He explains how this will help show how many calories they are burning, and from what fuel source it's coming from (fat or carb).
After their orientation, the parents and kids had some paperwork to fill out before they got to play the games. Andrea (standing) is Dr. Haddock's main student helper on this research.
The study is comparing resting metabolic rate with exercise metabolic rate while playing Xavix's Jackie Chan Fitness Studio game. Here you see some of the kids playing the different games on the j-mat. The people in the background are other CSUSB students who are helping with the study.
This girl stayed almost 2 hours playing Dash...she was so determined to beat her score of 76 that she didn't want to stop! In the end, she was literally crying when she left because she wanted to stay and beat her score. Here's what is even more amazing--and shows the power of exertainment--she wasn't much into PE or physical activity in school, but when properly motivated, she didn't want to stop!
Over the next couple of weeks, we'll be testing each kid individual. They'll come in and rest for 10 minutes as we measure their metabolism. Then they will play for 30 mins as we continue to measure their metabolism. Stay tuned for more pictures!
This is our first research study, setting out to prove that playing exertainemnt video games really does burn calories. If you've every played these types of games, you'd think it was a no-brainer, but in the field of medicine, unless there's a study done, it's not real! So we begin our contribution to validate the field of exertainment in medicine.
This is just the beginning. I have a dissertation proposal meeting with doctoral student from Loma Linda Univ. who is doing an after-school exertainment study later this AM. And I have another master's students from CSUSB who is working on doing an exertainment study for his thesis. Once XRtainment Zone is open, we'll be able to do even more studies on the various games that we'll have.
It is our goal to conduct as many research studies as we can on exertainment, so that we can publish and present our findings to the medical and fitness community so that they can be aware about this powerful tool that they can use to get kids moving again.
Our first medical conference is coming up March 5 right here at LLU where I'll be speaking at a School of Medicine function and then later on that week, at LLU's School of Public Health's Healthy People conference. Dr. Haddock and I also want to present at the American College of Sports Medicine annual conference someday, hopefully next year!
A special thanks to
Xavix for contributing the Jackie Chan games for this study. They have been very supportive of our work in schools and research, and we greatly appreciate their contribution to moving the field of exertainment forward.
Thanks to
CSUSB for getting the study all organized. There's no way I could've pulled this study off without their expertise and resources. It's especially gratifying to work with my former instructor who taught me all the exercise physiology that I know and use today.
I would also like to give a special thanks to my workplace,
Beaver Medical Group, for being very supportive in this whole field of exertainment. They approved our budget to introduce the games into our Family Fit (formerly Kid Fit) program so the kids and parents can experience this type of exercise/play. And now they have approved this first study using BMG patients and testing at our clinic. Without their support, it would be very difficult to do this research.
Lead student investigator Andrea and her team of CSUSB students adjust the mask onto Angel.
For 10 minutes, we measure his resting metabolic rate while watching Shrek 2. 
Angel does the "Advanced" level on Jackie Chan's Action Run, while surrounded by his college attendants.
A student holds the portable metabolic unit while Angel runs through the streets of Hong Kong, going around and jumping over barriers, and fighting off ninjas (he stomped over 74 ninjas in one game!). 
While taking a break, Andrea checks to make sure the masks continues to have a good seal on his face.
With Angel's mom standing in the middle, Andrea downloads the data from the portable metabolic unit and shows her how many calories he burned and from what fuel sources. 
