Is Microsoft’s Kinect the Secret Weapon in the War on Obesity?
We all know the rates of obesity are rising. The rates are alarming no matter where you look:
- Obesity in children rises from 6.5% to 20% in last 30 years
- Nine US states have obesity rates over 30%
- An unbelievable, 64% of adults over 20 are considered overweight or obese
The situation looks pretty grim. So how do we reverse this trend? Can Microsoft’s Kinect for XBox be the secret weapon?
Let me explain.
- My 6 and 3/4 year old son, Dante (pictured above), has Prader-Willi Syndrome
- Dante loves the Kinect
Still not clear. Let me explain further. We know there are a number of causes of obesity, which can broadly be categorized into behaviour or genetics. Prader-Willi Syndrome, which my son has, is the most common genetic cause of Obesity. What this means is his body doesn’t register being full properly. Left unmanaged people with Prader-Willi Syndrome (PWS) would literally eat themselves to death. In addition, people with PWS have low muscle tone, which makes exercising more difficult … as if it wasn’t hard enough. Basically, when it comes to obesity, the odds are stacked against Dante.
But here’s the main point. Dante loves the Kinect. I know I already mentioned that, but I want to make sure you understand. If you haven’t seen it yet, the Kinect is a gaming system that is controlled by a video camera that tracks your body movements. You don’t need a controlled in your hands … as they say in the commercials … you are the controller. What this allows is people to get more engaged with the games and actually requires physical movement (e.g., exercise) in order to play the game. My son comes home from school and does boxing, dancing or sports on the Kinect for over an hour … everyday. He finishes sweating just as if he had completed a one hour cardio workout.
Still not convinced. Let’s take a look at the math:
Let’s assume Dante burns 100 calories per hour of exercise on the Kinect. Let’s also assume he uses the Kinect 350 days in the year. Considering each pound represents about 3500 calories this means Dante will burn about 10 pounds per year simply playing the Kinect! (100 * 350 / 3500)
Now consider Microsoft has sold over 10,000,000 Kinects. This means that every year the Kinect will contribute to people losing an amazing 100M pounds (10M * 10 pounds).
Finally if we consider there are 25M overweight children in the US (75 M children * 33% overweight rate), that means that the Kinect could help all overweight children in the US lose 4 pounds per year! (100M pounds / 25 M overweight children)
Okay, I know the analysis above is a little contrived, but it illustrates the point. If your child has problems with weight or has PWS I recommend getting a Kinect.
If you are still not sure, checkout Dante winning the hurdles on the Kinect!
[For disclosure, I do not own Microsoft stock ]
Kristin Simms Says:
Thanks for sharing, I also think the connect is awesome! My 3 year old daughter can kick some butt! LOL
Posted on October 20th, 2011 at 3:03 pm