Monday, October 20, 2008

RPG Pedometer Games

Bandai will be releasing two new PRG pedometer games for the holiday season and for about $45, you might be able to get more physical activity while playing an egame. The game is designed to be played over 90 days and it would be interesting to see what changes people considering that many people tire of playing a new game/exercise routine quickly. It would be really neat to have access to some of that data to look at the amount of steps and frequency of use over the 90 days, especially at days 30,60, and 90. I think it would be a great research project. Hmmm, anyone know someone at Bandai? If so, please e-mail me.

[Via Gizmodo, via Trends in Japan via bbGadgets]

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

"Your Life Rhythm" on DS

Earlier I posted the latest Nintendo pedometer that had yet to be announced with a game, well now we know the name of the game.... "Your Life Rhythm" built for the DS. According to the Kotaku post, it will need to be plugged into the DS like the My Weight Loss Coach pedometer. At least it certainly looks more streamline and not so bulky and obtrusive. And here is the rest of it.
[Via Kotaku, ]

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Utterli Utterlicious - Podcasting for Health

utterli-image
Ate a cup of whole-wheat spaghetti and chicken marsala. (On table next to Gamercize Cycle stand)

Mobile post sent by ExergameLab using Utterli. reply-count Replies.
Utterlicious
Podcast your dining experiences! Upload photos of your meals and share delicious descriptions of the foods consumed.

If you enjoy your food, you'll be more mindful when you eat it. If you're mindful when you eat, you'll be conscious of what you're putting in your body. If you're conscious of what you're putting in your body, you'll be likely to choose healthier foods (most of the time, anyway.)
My exergaming colleague Biray Alsac (Befitt with Biray) showed me this website that allows you to upload audio, video, photos, and text to your Utterli account, which you can in turn share with your friends. Always the fitness "Maverick" of social networking, Befitt teaches her students how to use technology to assist their fitness and wellness plans. She created the Utterlicious month long podcast challenge to help us all be more mindful of what we eat. There have been many past research projects that made participants photograph everything they eat and many of them showed a change (at least in short-term) in eating patterns. But, isn't that what most of us in the health, recreation, wellness, fitness, physical activity, physical education, and therapy fields want for our audience...to be more mindful of our actions, bodies, thoughts, food as well as our impact on others and the environment.Wouldn't it be nice (channeling some Beach Boys here) to have all the food you eat tracked using something like Utterli or one of the other mobile device. Once the meal is loaded to a website like CalorieLab, (featured elsewhere) the nutrition values would be added to your daily intake. For example, you eat at PF Chang's and order the Chang's Chicken in Soothing Lettuce Wraps (thanks Julie), all of the info including the calories (energy intake) would be collected. And since your mobile device probably has a heart rate monitor, GPS, accelerometer, or pedometer assessing your physical activity levels (See miCoach, GameBullet, Sony F305, iPhone, Flaik, Sportio, Bones in Motion, Loopt, Motion Based, PerDiemco or others featured in an earlier post). - your energy expenditure would be tracked. The intake and expenditure would be automatically calculated and it would really show you what you're doing or not doing to your body. Hmmm...
[Cross-posted to Rockstar PE]

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