Learning While Exercising

As I was watching some t.v. the other night, this commercial came on and caught my attention.  During my time at SUNY Cortland I was introduced to a new way of exercising, and that's through video games.  It's the newest way to incorporate the casual video games of sitting down and using a remote, with exercising like your actually playing the game.  Over the past years, exergames has become more popular, and able to put together more devices for schools and teachers to use.  During my 470 class, we were introduced to about 5 different video games that make the player exercise at the pace they would like, almost like a treadmill.  The first one that caught my eye was the boxing game which was similar to dance, dance revolution.  The game is the same, but instead of touching the floor board underneath you, you are connecting with the boxing bag on either the top, bottom, left or ride side.  Another game which caught my eye was the PlayStation bike.  The actual game in the PlayStation was a racing game, so as the bike peddles faster, the car moved faster.  After three laps, people were sweating and saying it was definitely a good workout.

The reason I posted this commercial is because it directly relates to what I have been doing in some of my classes during college.  Being able to let students try these new ideas and activities are great, but I feel like we need to do it at a younger age.  This young boy is learning new letters and numbers while riding a bike.  As he gets older, maybe exergames will be more attracting to him because he grew up playing games like this, rather than the classic sitting down video games.  With the obesity problem rising in this country, parents need to recognize what is better off for their kids.  Introducing these games at a young age could set them in the right track for the rest of there life.