Can Video Games Improve Fitness and Health?

Anyone who’s set a health or fitness orientated goal before understands how many challenges can pop up along the way.

One of the primary problems being boredom. Boredom comes to the strict dieter who eats the same meals at the same times everyday.

As you can imagine, with boredom comes “falling off the wagon”. Boredom brings with it large, unplanned, tasty cheat meals that contribute to your weight gain.

And many times, when someone falls of the wagon, it’s an all or nothing thing.

“Ate one cheat meal, might as well skip the workout and eat 3 more!”

So, how do video games play into this? How do video games help you lose weight?

Ask any dietitian or mainstream-educated health professional, and the answer would be the complete opposite. They would say the lack of movement would likely cause less calories burned throughout the day, and thus, cause you to gain weight.

I, and many others, think they can. Any figure competitor or bodybuilder who has dieted for a competition (uh all?) will tell you the number one thing you have to do is get your mind off food. These are the people who are dieting to sub 9% body fat, so they know what they’re talking about.

Isn’t that what video games do? I mean say you do everything you need to do in a day, video games can take your mind off everything for a few hours, including food. I don’t just get hungry when I’m playing a game I’m really interested in. It just doesn’t happen.

If you’re not thinking about food and not getting hungry, that nourishes the idea that you might eat less. And during times of dieting, that’s a plus.

It’s not a 100 percent yet, but I do think video games can help smarter individuals lose weight if they learn how to manipulate their schedules and their diets.

As I wrote that last line, I simultaneously turned on my Xbox to play some Call of Duty, for my weight of course.

Source by Ahmed S.