Fun & Fit: Video Games That Help Kids Exercise

Sometimes, using games is a great way to reward a kid for a job well done.

I use this tactic with my own daughter. I reward her work by letting her accumulate game time that she can save up to use consecutively. Someone told me I was crazy for letting her save up hours of time to play at one time. But my daughter doesn’t just live to play video games. And even still, her favorite games to play require the use of our Kinect.

Through the games we buy for our Kinect, she is getting tons of exercise on days when she can’t go outside because of bad weather. 

Living in tornado alley, where we have had not one, but two EF5s within the last two weeks, it’s important to me to have fun alternative ways to exercise. The Kinect lets us have that in our small house.

One of her favorite games is Wipeout In the Zone. This game is an absolute, total workout. I can’t even finish one phase without breathing hard and she can go for hours, doing nothing but lots of giggling and laughing at herself and the mistakes she makes on the courses. And that’s not the only physical game she likes to play. She’s even tried out my Zumba Fitness game. Her second favorite game is Kinect Adventures, which is also a huge workout.