English study says playing Wii Sports will not keep you slim

Contrary to previous accounts, a scientific study conducted in England says that playing Nintendo Wii games alone cannot serve as a substitute for real life exercise.

As you might have expected, the researchers behind the study have the empirical data to back it up, too. Find out the details of their research after the jump.

Playing Nintendo’s Wii Sports may be a fun way to get your body moving, but don’t expect great results when you use it as a substitute for actual aerobic exercise. According to a recent study conducted by researchers at Liverpool John Moores University, relying on Nintendo’s Wii sports alone to keep the fat off won’t work.

The English study consisted of six boys and five girls, aged 13-15. Scientists outfitted the children with a monitoring device to calculate their energy expenditure while they played games such as Nintendo’s Wii Sports and Project Gotham Racing 3 for 15 minutes each.

The result? While the kids spent more energy playing Wii Sports than playing other games, the energy expenditure amounted to only 60 calories per hour, equivalent to about a quarter of a Mars bar.

The researchers then concluded that a week of so-called “active gaming”, the likes of which may be seen while playing games like Nintendo’s Wii Sports, only increases energy expenditure by less than two percent – nowhere near as much as playing the sport in real life. Nonetheless, the researchers remarked that games like Wii Sports at least encourage movement and motor control (and, if we may add, healing as well).