Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Friday, February 4, 2011

New article on exergaming!


2-4-11: Thx to Sir Richard for posting this article in FB. Read this article from the Health Journal and check out my comment after it. Let me know what you think!

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Ninja @ exergame presentation!

2-3-11: For the first time, I really was a "ninja" at an exergaming session last night by Rachel Flynn (no relation to Sheryl), a PhD student in cognitive psychology at a local university (Univ. of Riverside) presenting on exergaming and her study she did last summer with a summer camp back in NYC with George Wa. Univ. and Northwestern.

It was really strange to be in an exergaming presentation where NO ONE knew who I was! I really felt like a ninja spy. I tried to bite my tongue when she asked if we had any questions, but did pipe in now and then.

Overall, she did a good job, and in her last slide, she credited Exergames Unlocked and exergameslab.com for her resources! Her eyes grew big when I told her I knew Steven Yang well and that I was on the Exergames Unlocked grant! ;-)

We talked for quite a while after that, and hope to collaborate more with some research, especially involving impact of exergaming, interactive media, and cognition.

BTW, I was a double-ninja-spy because this presentation was being held in the Health Ed. dept. of a "competing" medical group, Riverside Medical Center!!! I told them afterwards, and they were cool about it. Health Ed folks are a friendly lot, even with competitors!

It's great to see exergaming research at other local universities and I want to do all I can to support that! ;-)

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Childhood obesity linked to health habits, not genetics...

2-1-11:...says a recent Univ. of Michigan study. Check out the full article here.

“For the extremely overweight child, genetic screening may be a consideration,” says study senior author Kim A. Eagle, M.D., a cardiologist and a director of the U-M Cardiovascular Center. “For the rest, increasing physical activity, reducing recreational screen time and improving the nutritional value of school lunches offers great promise to begin a reversal of current childhood obesity trends.”

This is a great opportunity for exergames to increase physical activity--both as part of an exercise program and also just overall increasing daily acts of living.