Regional
(2008-07-28)
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Colorado was recently recognized as the leanest state in the nation for the third year in a row. While America's obesity epidemic is far from over - KUNC commentator Dr. Marc Ringel says technology may play a role in reversing the trend. You don't usually find out the title I've tagged a piece with until the commentator says something like, To read or listen to today's commentary go to our website at kunc.org and click on [insert commentary title here]. This time, however, I'm not going to make you wait for the extro (radio jargon for the opposite of intro) to hear the title. It is, and This Little Piggy Cried ., which isn't much of a clue about the subject, I know. One thing it's not about is the nutritional value of pork. Here's another clue. For the purposes of this commentary, the wee in last line of the nursery rhyme, Wee, wee, wee, wee, wee is spelled W-I-I, because I'm referring here to the fabulous new game system that Nintendo has named Wii, spelled W-I-I. In case you haven't seen it (which can only mean that you neither are, nor do you ever see anyone less than 30 years old), Wii is a very clever computer gizmo that translates certain body moves into actions performed in a virtual world displayed on a television screen. There are Wii sport packs for bowling, batting, golfing and playing tennis, to name a few. While lasers track your every move and reflect it on the television screen, gyroscope-like devices within the chintzy implements you clutch to play the game give enough illusion of force and impact to rapidly trick your brain into assuming, for example, that the image of the ball hurtling toward you is just as real as the actual stubby little plastic bat which feels so hefty in your grip as you swing for the virtual fences. There are also air guitar, dance and aerobic exercise Wii challenges. And they've barely scraped the surface of possible interfaces between meatspace (nerd slang for the actual world that our bodies inhabit) and cyberspaces constructed out of software, hardware, illusion and imagination. As a physician, I'm especially interested in the opportunities to exercise that these gaming systems can provide. I've already heard confessions of post-Wii muscle soreness by of a number of gamers who'd been completely taken in by the virtual experience. Savvy trainers are taking advantage of this new technology to motivate people to exercise. A fascinating study, performed in Teesside, England and just published in CyberPsychology and Behavior, exposed 22 healthy people, ages 50 and older, to an underwater virtual environment portrayed on a television screen while they rode an exercise bike. It was a pretty crude set-up compared to the Wii systems that you can buy anywhere these days. By peddling faster or slower the subjects could, in one scenario, follow and hit targets projected on the screen. In other environments, they could indicate the answers to puzzles by varying pedal speed. The whole thing was automated. The results are a bit astounding. Absolutely every one of the subjects, no matter what their fitness level, preferred to take their exercise mixed with a smidgen of virtual reality. These subjects showed up for further workout sessions 100% of the time. They also underestimated their exercise duration by a hefty 38%. Imagine how much more of a workout the subjects might have been motivated to do if they'd been given more interesting tasks than chasing imaginary seahorses around in a simulated underwater environment. There are a number of medical and physiological studies going on today that employ rich and interesting worlds realized by powerful game systems. Virtual augmented exercise gaming, as it's called in the paper, may provide the best chance yet to motivate generations of couch potatoes to get up and run our larded French fry butts Wii Wii Wii Wii Wii all the way home. © Copyright 2009, KUNC
