Institute For The Future

Finally! A video game that recognizes that ""tag"" is a game, too!"

I must confess that, with all the attention we have paid to the future of games and health, I have always been a bit troubled that we never talk about how good old-fashioned games like "tag" and "hopscotch" are good for children's health, too. Given our forward-looking agenda, we have been defining health games in terms of technology and innovation, of course.

 

So I am delighted to learn of a new video game, developed by Kaiser Permanente, that encourages kids to go out and play! "The Incredible Adventures of the Amazing Food Detective" teaches about nutrition, but forces players to take a one-hour break between 20-minute game sessions.

A Reuters news article reports that Kaiser, the country's largest HMO, created the game to teach 9- and 10-year-olds about healthy eating and exercise. What was the company thinking? According to Ray Baxter, senior vice president for community benefit,

'Kids in America spend too much time in front of the TV, and the messages they get there about eating, activity, and role models are all the wrong (ones). . . . Finger-wagging and telling kids to eat more green vegetables is not going to work. You've got to change the environment and change the message.'

The game is available free of charge in English and Spanish versions at www.kp.org/amazingfooddetective and through the Centers for Disease Control's site at www.cdc.gov.

 

Now the big question is, when the 20 minute session is up, and the game locks the players out for an hour, will they really spend that time running around outside, or will they simply pop another video game into the machine? And I wonder whether Kaiser has plans to collect any data on the effectiveness of this idea. That would be cool, too.