Assistant professor Zan Gao, Ph.D., and director of the Physical Activity Epidemiology Lab (PAEL), published a co-author paper, “Fun, Flow, and Fitness: Opinions for Making More Effective Active Videogames,” in the Games for Health Journal. 

Despite active video games’ popularity and ability to increase a player’s energy expenditure, research indicates their use sharply declines over time, which limits their utility in promoting physical activity. A frequent criticism is that a player’s interest is quickly exhausted. A group of video game developers and investigators including Gao discussed and shared lessons learned from using serious video games in health behavior change and offer insight to guide future efforts.

The citation is :

Maloney, A. E., Mellecker, R., Buday, R., Gao, Z., Hinkley, T., Esparza, L., & Alexander, S. (2015). Fun, Flow, and Fitness: Opinions for Making More Effective Active Videogames. Games for Health Journal, 4(1), 53-57.