Impacto de uma intervenção com vídeo game ativo no perfil cardiometabólico de adolescentes com excesso de peso: Um estudo de intervenção

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Obesity is considered a chronic non-communicable disease with an important impact on public health, since it presents an epidemic behavior and its multi-causality makes it difficult to control it. In addition, this condition is responsible for both indirect and indirect costs to the public health system. Among the factors responsible for obesity, we can highlight the physical inactivity that increased due to the new technologies. Research done with school children reveals: low frequency of active adolescents and significant prevalences of overweight/obesity. Studies have used active video game as a tool to increase physical activity among individuals. The active video game is a game modality that stimulates the accomplishment of physical activity, allowing an increase in energy expenditure, physical activity level and improvement of the cardiometabolic profile. OBJECTIVE: Evaluate the impact of active video game technology on the cardiometabolic profile of overweight or obese school adolescents. METHODS: Intervention study, almost experimental, involving 48 adolescents, aged 15 to 19 years, from two public schools in the city of Campina Grande-PB. The sample consisted of all overweight or obese adolescents who accepted to participate in the study and who were within the eligibility criteria of the research. The XBOX 360 platform and the Just Dance game were used for intervention, since this game allows the individual to achieve a moderate intensity of exercise. The intervention was performed in selected rooms in schools for this purpose. The adolescents, in a group of four participants, underwent physical activity through active video game three times a week, being 50 minutes per session, totaling 150 minutes of weekly activities, for a period of eight weeks. The adolescents were evaluated at the starting point (week 0) and after the intervention period, and information was collected on the level of physical activity, systemic blood pressure, anthropometric variables (weight, height and waist circumference) resting heart rate and biochemical tests (total cholesterol, HDL, triglycerides, CRP, fasting glycemia, HbA1C, insulin). Only the socio-demographic and economic information was collected at the beginning of the intervention, during which it was verified the heart rate of training to quantify the intensity of the exercise. Karvonen formula was used to evaluate exercise intensity, and the value contained in the range of 61 to 80% of maximal heart rate was considered for moderate exercise classification. To evaluate the association of the intervention with the improvement of the cardiometabolic profile (total cholesterol, HDL-c, LDL-c, triglycerides, fasting glucose, fasting insulin, HbA1c, body mass index and abdominal circumference), it was performed the test t-student paired for the normal distribution variables and the Wilcoxon test for non-normal distribution variables. The verification of the normality of the variables was through the Komogorov-Smirnov test. The McNemar test was also performed to verify if there were significant changes after the intervention in the level of physical activity in the population. Finally, a correlation test was performed to verify if significant changes in the lipid profile were due to the frequency of the adolescents in the intervention. The analyzes were performed in SPSS, version 22.0, and a significance level of 5% was adopted. RESULTS: Of the adolescents selected, the majority were overweight (70.80%) and were female (60.40%). During the intervention, the intensity of the exercise was moderate. After the intervention it was verified an increase in the number of active adolescents (p=0,022), reduction of total cholesterol (p=0,037) and LDL-c (p=0,002); increse in HDL-c (p<0,001); There was no correlation between the frequency of physical activities and changes in total cholesterol, HDL-c and LDL-c (p=0,673; p=0,419; p= 0,363, respectively). CONCLUSIONS: The active video game was equated with a moderate type of physical activity, being effective for increasing the level of physical activity in overweight or obese adolescents. The study presented important changes in the lipid profile. This result suggests that the active video game can be deployed in the school environment aiming to improve the cardiometabolic profile of obese/overweight adolescents.