Clinical trial NCT02940431: Active Games: Increasing the Attractiveness of Active Video Game Play for Youth
Official title: Active Games: Increasing the Attractiveness of Active Video Game Play for Youth
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Child
Overweight
Sedentary Lifestyle
Lead sponsor: USDA Grand Forks Human Nutrition Research Center
Sponsor class: FED
First posted: 2016-10-20
Enrollment: 49
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 8
Maximum age (years): 12
Standard ages: CHILD
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: FACTORIAL
Primary purpose: OTHER

Brief summary: The purpose of this study is to look at the effects of active video game play on youth physical activity.

Detailed description: Child obesity is increasing worldwide and has major implications for health, both during youth and later in life. Physical activity declines sharply during adolescence, making ages 8-12 a critical period to encourage healthy exercise habits. Increased childhood weight has been linked to sedentary leisure time activities, such as video games. "Active video games" (AVGs) are now being studied as a method to increase children's interest and participation in physical activity. Although research indicates that AVG play may lead to energy expenditure comparable to light/ moderate physical activity, children prefer sedentary video games to AVGs and often find AVGs boring. Children do not play AVGs as often or with the same intensity as traditional games/sports and lose interest in them; efforts must be made to increase the appeal of AVGs so they are competitive with sedentary video games. This study will examine whether children's motivation to engage in AVG play may be increased with greater autonomy, as well as whether increasing children's motivation to play AVGs also increases their motivation to play sedentary video games.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Sedentary lifestyle
* BMI between 5th and 95th percentile

Exclusion Criteria:

* taking any medications that affect energy use or eating
* actively trying to lose weight
* has any medical conditions that prevent him/her from safely joining in physical activity
* exercises more than three times per week for one hour at a time
* does not engage in more than 14 hours per week of screen-based activities
* does not own an active video game system
* plays active video games more than 30 minutes per week

Primary outcomes:
measure: Change in relative reinforcing value (RRV) of active video games
timeFrame: Week 0, Week 6, Week 10
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Change in minutes of physical activity, as assessed by activity tracker
timeFrame: Week 0, Week 6, Week 10
measure: Change in minutes spent in traditional active play, active and sedentary video game play, and other sedentary screen-based activities
timeFrame: Week 0, Week 6, Week 10
measure: Beverage and snack food consumption
timeFrame: Week 0, Week 6, Week 10
measure: Children's exercise self-efficacy
timeFrame: Week 0, Week 6, Week 10
measure: Children's intrinsic, external, interrogated, identified, introjected and amotivation for physical activity
timeFrame: Week 0, Week 6, Week 10
measure: Children's intrinsic, external, interrogated, identified, introjected and amotivation for active video game play
timeFrame: Week 0, Week 6, Week 10
measure: Children's intrinsic, external, interrogated, identified, introjected and amotivation for sedentary video game play
timeFrame: Week 0, Week 6, Week 10
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Grand Forks
country: United States
facility: USDA Grand Forks Human Nutrition Research Center
state: North Dakota
Study officials:
affiliation: USDA Grand Forks Human Nutrition Research Center
name: James N Roemmich, PhD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References: