Remember when Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) was all the rage when it first came out several years ago? People seemed to gravitate toward the flashing lights, the hypnotizing beats and the opportunity to get your groove on without dancing lessons! Well over the past few years the idea of applying gaming interaction to benefit health and wellness has all but exploded onto the scene thanks to innovative products from the likes of Nintendo (e.g. Wii, Wii Fit, Nintendo DS puzzle games). Others are quickly gaining momentum and Pulse + Signal will regularly cover these advances in healthy gaming.
One of the most recent initiatives that I’m excited about is Humana Games’ Horsepower Challenge. Basically it’s a new program from Humana Games that combines the use of video games and exercising. This “exergaming” program aims to increase the activity levels of children to combat rising obesity rates. The Challenge involves 20 members of Congress and 2,000 fifth and sixth graders nationwide as they “race” across the country in a Web-based game where each student and congressional member powers a cartoon horse avatar by taking steps with a pedometer.
The initiative was launched on March 31st in Washington (check out media from the launch event here). During the launch event, Representative Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) had some words to say about the current state of health in America:
We have an explosion of obesity, as far as Americans are concerned. We’ve only increased our caloric intake about 100 calories over the past 25 years. What has changed is our lifestyle. There are more time on videos, there is more time being schlepped to school, there are more opportunities for people to avoid simple common sense activities that make a difference. This is what is so great about the challenge is that it engages young Americans to do something that young Americans of a generation or two ago did, for example, walking to school.
When I talk about how it’s time to get the wheels turning on new and innovative ways to engage people to better their health, this is the sort of thing I’m talking about! Think about the great ways that this will engage the minds of youth – to start them off on a path where healthy living isn’t a separate chore to adhere to but something that’s already integrated into their lives. Right now the Challenge is going on in the UK but later on in the Spring it will kick off here in the States!
Don’t think that the smart folks over at Humana aren’t making use of new media either. Quite the opposite! They’ve made it possible for you to stay connected with their activities with Facebook, Youtube and of course Twitter. Definitely looking forward to more great stuff from Humana – revolutionizing how we innovate in health.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Hey Robert!
Thanks for dropping by and checking out the post. Yes indeed, healthy gaming is turning into a veritable source for improving wellness and having a great time! I’ve been trying to stay on top of this industry and have a few friends who are doing amazing things – of course Humana being one of them.
Thanks for the kudos!
Hi Andre,
We, Changemakers, did a competition in 2007 on healthcare and video games http://changemakers.net/en-us/competition/healthgames. I remember the weird looks I got when I talked about the competition, now with the advent of Wii fit people think, “oh yea, of course,” but it wasn’t an easy sell in ’07. Always neat to see someone in this space. I follow you on twitter, thanks for the quality tweets, keep up the good work. -RQB
{ 3 trackbacks }