(Reuters) – boxing, tennis and dance made through video games would not help children to meet the daily needs of exercise, according to an American study.

researchers of the Faculty of medicine Baylor in Houston, Texas, found that children who were given the so-called active video games for play on the Nintendo Wii no reported more physical activity, moderate or vigorous who received video games which can be played sitting on the couch to.

Some public health researchers had hoped that active video games could be an alternative for the games and sports in the open air, at least for some physical activity children need, especially for those living in troubled neighborhoods where playing in the street is not always an option.

“Had hoped that play video games might induce a substantial increase in physical activity of children,” said Tom Baranowski and colleagues at Baylor.

“Frankly, we were awed by the total lack of difference”.

For the study, they distributed consoles Wii 78 children who did not have. Half was given the option of choosing an active play, such as Wii Sports or Dance Dance Revolution-Hottest Party 3, and the other half the option of choosing a game inactive, such as Disney Sing It Pop Hits and Super Mario Galaxy.

Half of the study, published in Pediatrics, children – all between 9 to 12 years old and overweight – were given the choice of a second game in the same category as the first.

Baranowski and his companions made small tracked for 13 weeks, examining their levels of physical activity with a measuring device called a accelerometer.

Participants took jobs devices in different periods of the week during the study, which allowed the research team to determine when did light, moderate to vigorous exercise or were when sedentary.

Accelerometer records showed that during the period of study, children with active games did more exercise that those who had been given inactive games.

In week one, six, seven and 12, the Group of children with active video games made an average of 25 to 28 minutes of moderate or vigorous physical activity a day, compared with between 26 and 29 minutes for the group receiving inactive games.

There was also no difference in the time you were doing light exercise or that were sedentary during the weeks that the researchers studied.