Game Changer: Investing in Digital Play to Advance Children's Learning and Health

Based on a literature review and interviews with digital learning experts, explores how digital games can foster skills and knowledge for better academic performance and health. Makes recommendations for government research, partnerships, and media

Gaming towards academic and physical success

This review addresses the potential of serious video games and the benefits that serious video games can have on a student academically as well as physically. Serious video games require strategic thinking, problem solving, planning and decision making. Serious video games enable learners to experience ~eal world situations without the real-life consequences. Exergaming provides potential for combining gaming and exercise, this type of video game has tremendous upside. This review of research.investigates how video games can be used to engage learners and help students learn. Research is needed to determine which features of games and simulation~ are important for learning and how best to design these games

Physical literacy: Importance, assessment and future directions

Physical literacy (PL) has become a major focus of physical education, physical activity and sports promotion worldwide. PL is a multifaceted conceptualisation of the skills required to fully realise potentials through embodied experience. Substantial financial investments in PL education by governments are underpinned by a wide range of anticipated benefits, including expectations of significant future savings to healthcare, improved physical and psychological well-being of the population, increased work-force productivity and raised levels of expertise in sport and exercise participation. However, disappointingly, scientific evidence showing the efficacy of PL interventions to successfully meet such high expectation is limited. We suggest that contradictions in research findings are due largely to limitations in movement assessment batteries and consequent discrepancies between measurements used to assess the immediate outcomes of PL programmes. Notably, there is no robust empirical tool for evidencing skill learning in the physical movement component of PL, education and this presents a serious limitation to the design of, and claims that can be made for, such interventions. Considering the parameters of proficient PL skills and the limitations of current evaluation instruments, possible future directions for developing empirical measures of PL movement skills are presented

Digital Food Marketing to Children and Adolescents: Problematic Practices and Policy Interventions

Examines trends in digital marketing to youth that uses "immersive" techniques, social media, behavioral profiling, location targeting and mobile marketing, and neuroscience methods. Recommends principles for regulating inappropriate advertising to youth

Active games: an examination of user engagement to define design recommendations

Active gaming is a form of video gaming that requires full body motion or varying degrees of physical activity to play a game. While active gaming has gained momentum, there is a lack of studies that provide insight on how they should be designed, specifically components of active games make them engaging. This study identifies, analyzes and categorizes specific design mechanics and features used in active games. It answers the question: Which, if any, game mechanics and features can a panel of experts in academia, health and the game industry agree on as valuable and impactful to the construction of successful and engaging active games? Using a Delphi study, nine experts answered questions related to active gaming. They reached agreement on 20 of the 21 inquiries regarding game design focused on motivation, social influences and flow. Their feedback offers recommendations on the design of future active games, and identifies emerging trends. This study shares their notes, and translates the findings into specific recommendations for developers on the design of active games

Viable Health Games: Elements for Success

The main purpose of this study is to identify the elements of children's health games that have a positive impact on children’s health. The investigation is done by evaluating previous health game studies concentrating on children and five health affairs (such as asthma, cancer, diabetes, nutrition and obesity). In order to do so, firstly the topic of children’s health games is explained through its roots, as it is an interdisciplinary topic pertinent with many other fields. For this reason, the topics regarding the children’s health games as games, video games, children’s gameplay, and serious games along with health, relevant health affairs, and health promotion were covered. Secondly, the meta-study was conducted with the 56 articles on children’s health games. These 56 articles were analyzed with the coding technique defined by Charmaz’s Grounded Theory Method (Charmaz, 2006) for finding out which elements of children’s health games have a positive impact on children’s health promotion. The main result suggests that, although there are 24 different elements found and listed which all positive in their nature, their positive impact is a matter of how they are used or implemented through the consumption cycle of children’s health games and how all these elements interact with each other. In addition to this, a pragmatic proposal is formulated for possibly better or more successful health games. The study concludes with the declaration of the limitations encountered through the research and the recommendations for future research.siirretty Doriast

Sport Exergames for Physical Education

Sports active video games (exergames) are accessible forms of physical activity which might also be used in physical education (PE) curriculum. The purpose of this book chapter is to firstly, review some of the relevant applications of sports exergames for inclusion in PE and secondly, to characterize one of these games (swimming) from different aspects of biomechanics, physiology, and psychology. We compared movement patterns, muscle activation, energy expenditure, enjoyment, usability, and game experience in participants with different performing levels (real-swimmers vs. non-swimmers, experienced vs. novice) and gender. Understanding these parameters may help in the development of more realistic sports exergames and meaningful gameplay and may give PE teachers a better idea of the inclusion of such games in their practice

Interactive Food and Beverage Marketing: Targeting Children and Youth in the Digital Age

Looks at the practices of food and beverage industry marketers in reaching youth via digital videos, cell phones, interactive games and social networking sites. Recommends imposing governmental regulations on marketing to children and adolescents