The Journal
By Shaya Tayefe Mohajer
March 16, 2008
After weeks of bopping along to the video game Dance Dance Revolution, Ryan Walker is trimmer and stronger — and for the first time, the 12-year-old feels comfortable in his own skin.
‘‘Before, he didn’t want to play with kids, go to school dances or any of those functions — and now he wants to do things,’’ says his mother, Tammy Walker.
Ryan’s transformation occurred over the 24 weeks he participated in a West Virginia University study that hoped to determine if the exergame could be used to combat the nation’s child obesity problem.
The study, funded in part by West Virginia’s health insurance program for public employees, took 35 overweight children between the ages of 7 and 12 and asked them to gradually increase the amount of time they played the game. Each child was medically considered overweight according to his body-mass index, a measurement of body fat through a height and weight ratio.
The game’s addictive nature, and capacity to lead to greater physical activity, earn it a comparison to drugs, with WVU researcher Linda Carson dubbing it a ‘‘gateway physical activity.’’
The state’s rural nature, which hampers the development of exercise-oriented infrastructure, is partly blamed for the problems with obesity, state nutrition officials say. Poverty also plays a role as it affects nearly 1 in 4 West Virginia children.