Video game helps players lose weight

[Champ]

May 25, 2004 (COLUMBUS, Ohio) — Forget the image of paunchy video gamers holed up in a dark room, surrounded by sticky Twinkie wrappers and empty soda cans Dance Dance Revolution players burn extra pounds along with their quarters. Weight loss is an unexpected benefit of a game designed for dance music.

Natalie Henry, 14, was drawn to the pulsing techno songs, and didn't realize she had slimmed down until she went clothes shopping.

"I went to go buy pants and the 14s were too big. The more I played, I gradually had to get smaller size pants," said Natalie, who now buys size 8 baggy cargoes.

The premise of DDR is simple: Players stand on a 3-foot square platform with an arrow on each side of the square pointing up, down, left and right. The player faces a video screen that has arrows scrolling upward to the beat of a song chosen by the player. As an arrow reaches the top of the screen, the player steps on the corresponding arrow on the platform.
http://abclocal.go.com/wls/news/strange/052504_ap_sn_videogame.html

[trumad]

1. Disingenuous article...

It makes it sound like you lose weight playing Pac-man or Halo... DDR is a game where you move your ass off... My kids have it and they sweat up a storm.