More than $10 million dollars has been invested into developing and promoting a new video game that the National Institutes of Health hope will lead youngsters to a healthier, more active lifestyle.
More than $10 million dollars has been invested into developing and promoting a new video game that the National Institutes of Health hope will lead youngsters to a healthier, more active lifestyle. In one of the games, “Escape from Diab”, players are trapped in a city where the only food freely available is pure junk food. They must learn from a healthy, track-star boy who mystically finds himself thrown into this world, learning how and why to eat healthier in order to escape and make it to the Golden City.
The other game is “Nanoswarm: Invasion from Inner Space”. In this one, players are sent into the year 2030, where everything is pretty darn near perfect and there's even a female president. The catch is that it's the kids who are tasked with the responsibility of saving the human race from type II deiabetes and obesity. Kids are more into video games than ever, especially those with zombies, shooting and vampires. So developing games that have a positive impact has been a growing trend.
Archimage, Inc was given over $9 million to develop the games. They tested them out with about 100 kids who ranged in ages from 10 to 12. The children did slightly increase the amount of fruits and veggies, they didn't show any increase in physical activity.
While neither game is available to the public yet, “Escape from Diab” has information and other mini-games on their website. They're also in the process of creating a mobile game that helps parents learn to get kids to eat better, called “Kiddio: Food Fight”.
Baylor College of Medicine is spending nearly $2 million to study how the fight against fat can be improved through video games.