![\"American](\"http:\/\/www.clarksvilleonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/American-Heart-Association-new-logo-480x230.jpg\" "\\"American"){kind=logo}
Portland, OR<\/strong> – Playing the popular smartphone game Pok\u00e9mon Go may increase people\u2019s daily steps, especially among young adults with low physical activity <\/a>levels or those who are overweight or obese<\/a>, according to research presented at the American Heart Association\u2019s Epidemiology and Prevention \/ Lifestyle and Cardiometabolic Health 2017 Scientific Sessions.<\/p>\nIn Pok\u00e9mon Go, a location-based augmented reality game, players move around a physical location capturing animated creatures on smartphones and other mobile devices. Pok\u00e9mon Go has generated a great deal of interest since it was released in July 2016, but few studies have examined whether playing the game can increase an individual\u2019s level of physical activity.<\/p>\n
![\"When](\"http:\/\/www.clarksvilleonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/walking-together-480x320.jpg\" "\\"When")
<\/a>When guided by internet programs or mobile devices, people can become more physically active, eat better, lose a little weight and reduce tobacco and alcohol use. (American Heart Association)<\/p><\/div>\n
\u201cWe wanted to determine if Pok\u00e9mon Go can provide an enjoyable way to engage people in regular physical activity,\u201d said Hanzhang Xu, a graduate student at Duke University School of Nursing in Durham, North Carolina. \u201cOur findings suggest that active-play games, such as Pok\u00e9mon Go, may encourage people who live sedentary lifestyles, who otherwise may not participate in traditional forms of exercise, to increase their physical activity.\u201d<\/p>\n
The researchers recruited 167 iPhone users who had played Pok\u00e9mon Go in July 2016 and asked them to provide screenshots of their daily steps reported by the iPhone Health app between June 15th and July 31st, 2016. Before playing Pok\u00e9mon Go, participants walked an average of 5,678 steps. This number increased to 7,654 after playing the game, an average increase of 1,976 steps each day.<\/p>\n
They also found:<\/strong><\/p>\n Although the researchers found a significant increase in physical activity after playing Pok\u00e9mon Go, Ms. Xu said the initial interest may decline over time.<\/p>\n [320right]Ms. Xu said that while the average increase of nearly 2,000 additional steps per day may seem small, previous studies show this increase lowers the risk of having a heart attack or stroke by 8 percent in high-risk individuals. Mobile games incorporating physical activity into the gameplay may provide an alternative way to promote physical activity in people who are attracted to the game.<\/p>\n \u201cConsidering the low level of physical activity in the United States, doing some physical activity is always better than sitting on the couch,\u201d she said. \u201cWhile current physical activity guidelines recommend activity such as running or swimming to promote health and fitness, it should be noted that the best form of physical activity is the one that people will do. We think our study could have implications for the design of other digital health interventions that encourage people to exercise more.\u201d<\/p>\n Co-authors are Ying Xian, MD, Ph.D., Haolin Xu, M.S., Li Liang, Ph.D., Adrian F. Hernandez, M.D., Tracy Y. Wang, M.D., and Eric D. Peterson, M.D. This study is funded by the Duke Clinical Research Institute. Author disclosures are on the abstract.<\/p>\n Additional Resources<\/strong><\/p>\n American Heart Association Meeting Report Portland, OR – Playing the popular smartphone game Pok\u00e9mon Go may increase people\u2019s daily steps, especially among young adults with low physical activity levels or those who are overweight or obese, according to research presented at the American Heart Association\u2019s Epidemiology and Prevention \/ Lifestyle and Cardiometabolic Health 2017 Scientific […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[86],"tags":[2538,6010,1097,8045,9585,2513,6265,11546,3324,862],"class_list":["post-12413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","tag-american-heart-association","tag-app","tag-duke-university","tag-durham-nc","tag-obese","tag-overweight","tag-physical-activity","tag-pokemon-go","tag-portland-or","tag-smartphone"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12413"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12413\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12414,"href":"https:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12413\/revisions\/12414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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