P.E. with a Wii

On January 11, 2011, The Washington Post published an article about the use of Wii games in Physical Education courses. The article reports some of the exciting results found in our recent study on the effects of cooperative versus competitive Wii Active game play on overweight and obese adolescents. To read the article in The Washington Post, click here.

Additionally, the study was reported in an October 2009 article in The News Journal on Delaware Online, written by Edward L. Kenney (click here to access the full article). Here's an excerpt from the article:

In July 2008, the Children's Digital Media Center at Georgetown University conducted a study on 71 teenagers using the Wii tennis game to determine the physical benefits.

"We found that, yes, adolescents are burning calories when playing the Wii games that are very close to levels of moderate intensity activity," said Amanda Exner, a doctoral candidate in psychology.

Exner, who refers to such activities as "exergames," said one of the preliminary findings of the study was that boys burned more calories than girls when they played solo, but that girls burned more calories when they played an opponent. A follow-up study is scheduled to begin next month.

"Video games are a part of many adolescents' daily experiences, and something that they voluntarily participate in and enjoy," Exner said. "Because of this, exergames could become part of the solution, not just a perceived part of the problem, in promoting physical activity and thus combating the obesity crisis."

Hsin Yi Foundation in Taipei

In July 2010, Professor Calvert visited the Hsin Yi Foundation in Taipei, Taiwan, where she gave a number of talks on children and media.

Additionally, in June 2008, Professor Calvert visited the Hsin Yi Foundation, where she and Dr. Christakis each presented three invited lectures. Two lectures were to professionals and one was to families about the influence of media in children’s lives.

Summaries of these lectures are below:

1) Media Exposure

2) Symbol Systems of Media in Relation to How Children Think at Different Ages

3) Master the Learning Effects of Digital Media

Dr. Christakis, Chief Executive Officer Chang of the Hsin Yi Foundation, and Professor Calvert at the Fifth Hsin Yi Childhood Conference.

CDMC Awarded Health Games Research Grant funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

In November 2009, Professor Calvert and Dr. Anisha Abraham were awarded a two-year Health Games Research grant by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Pioneer Portfolio. This grant will support the Children’s Digital Media Center efforts to identify innovative ways that digital media can combat the obesity crisis to curb these health risks.

In this seven-month field experiment, obese and overweight urban high school students are playing the Wii Active exergame in an after school program either competitively against each other or cooperatively as a team. Both groups have the goal of lowering their body mass index (BMI). These groups are then compared to a control group. The study examines physiological, social, and cognitive outcomes of participants in all three groups to determine whether those who play Wii Active are more physically active; lose more weight; develop more self-esteem; have more friends; and have better memory, attention, and other cognitive skills than those assigned to the control group. Effects are expected to be most pronounced in the cooperative game.

Press Coverage:
Georgetown University Blue & Gray, Research Grants
GamaSutra, RWJ Foundation Awards $1.85 Million for Health Games Research
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Nine Leading Research Teams Selected to Study How Digital Games Improve Players' Health .

Alexis Lauricella Awarded Fred Rogers Scholarship

In June 2009, Alexis Lauricella, a PhD candidate who conducts research at the CDMC, was awarded the Fred Rogers Scholarship by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation and the firm of Ernst & Young. The scholarship will fund her continued study of the relationship between children's media use and learning. To read an article by ABC News, click here.

Scholarship recipients Mayuran Tiruchelvam, Thy Than, Mrs. Joanne Rogers and scholarship recipient Alexis Lauricella pose at the 2009 Fred Rogers Memorial Scholarship Ceremony, held at the Leonard H. Goldenson Theatre on Sunday June 7, 2009 in North Hollywood, Calif.

Advergame Marketing to Children

As part of our childhood obesity initiative, the Children’s Digital Media Center conducted an experimental study to assess the effects of Internet food marketing on children. Third and fourth grade students chose healthier snacks after playing a health-promoting advergame.

This study was recently published in the July 2009 issue of Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, a publication of the American Medical Association. Professor Calvert recently presented these findings at the Food Presentation and New Media Conference, sponsored by the Department of Health and the UK Association for the Study of Obesity, in London, England. Click here. to read more. Click on the image to play the game!

Screen Shot of Advergame

Food Marketing to Children and Youth

Over the past four decades, our nation's childhood obesity rate has tripled, resulting in a national health crisis.  In December of 2005, Food Marketing to Children and Youth: Threat or Opportunity? was released by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS).  Drs. Sandra Calvert and Ellen Wartella of the Children's Digital Media Center were members of the NAS committee who studied this issue and who wrote this book about how marketing practices are contributing to childhood obesity. 

On Thursday, February 23, 2006, the Children's Digital Media Center and the Center for Research on Children in the United States hosted a family policy forum on Food Marketing to Children and Youth: Threat or Opportunity? This forum brought together members of the National Academy of Sciences panel who discussed what families and policy makers can do to protect children from advertising and marketing practices that promote unhealthy diets as well as explored how those same techniques can lead to healthier diets. 

Panelists included J. Michael McGinnis, M.D., M.P.P., the Chair of our report and a Senior Scholar at the Institute of Medicine at the National Academies; Robert Post, Ph.D., J.D., and the Davies Professor of Law at Yale Law School; Ellen A. Wartella, Ph.D., and Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost at the University of California Riverside; and Sandra L. Calvert, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology and Director of the Children's Digital Media Center. 

Awards:
2005 - Sandra Calvert received the Outstanding Applied/Public Policy Research Program Award from the International Communication Association

2005 - Sandra Calvert received a distinguished achievement in scholarship and research at Georgetown University, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

May 19, 2004—Washington, DC— Senators Lieberman, Brownback, and Clinton introduced the Children and Media Research Advancement Act (CAMRA), a bill designed to provide competitive funding for researchers to examine the effects of media on children's development

Review the CAMRA bill here.
Read Senator Joseph Lieberman's statement here.

In 2003, the Children's Digital Media Center hosted a symposium
featuring child development specialists studying the role of television
and interactive digital media on children. The panel of experts
discussed the gaps in research in the children and media area.
Special guests included:

Senator Sam Brownback		Senator Joseph Lieberman

Complete transcript

Featured Experts

• Daniel Anderson, Ph.D., the University of Massachusetts
  Presentation | Bio
  
• Sandra Calvert, Ph.D., Children's Digital Media Center at Georgetown
  University
  Presentation | Bio
  
• Amy Jordan, Ph.D., Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of
  Pennsylvania
  Presentation | Bio
  
• Gary Knell, president and CEO, Sesame Workshop
  Presentation | Bio
  
• John P. Murray, Ph.D., Kansas State University
  Presentation | Bio
  
• Michael Rich, M.D., Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of
  Public Health
  Presentation | Bio
  
• Donald Roberts, Ph.D., Stanford University
  Presentation | Bio
  
• Dorothy Singer, Ph.D., Yale University Family TV Research and
  Consultation Center
  Presentation | Bio
  
• Moderated by Ellen Wartella, Ph.D., Children's Digital Media Center
  and the College of Communication at The University of Texas at Austin
  Bio
• Special guest Senator Joseph Lieberman
  Senator Lieberman's statement
  

Hosted by the Children's Digital Media Center at the College of
Communication at The University of Texas and the Department of
Psychology at Georgetown University.