‘Johnny, come in and play!’ Video games better for kids than outdoor activities, study claims

‘Children’s increased interest in video games has been worrying many parents who would prefer they ‘go play outside.’ However, new research has shown that active video games may be a better source of physical activity than outdoor play.

A study by the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, recently published in the Games for Health Journal, suggests that video games which wholly engage a child’s body are a good source of physical activity for children.

“What we wanted to do is we wanted to compare an active video game to how young children generally get their physical activity – unstructured outdoor play. We’ve found that the active video game did provide an active source of activity for the kids,” director of the Activity Lab of the University of Tennessee, Hollie Raynor told RT.’

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