Impacto do videogame ativo sobre o consumo de alimentos não saudáveis entre adolescentes com excesso de peso: Estudo de intervenção controlado

Abstract

INTRODUTION: Obesity is associated with a growing increase in the consumption of foods rich in empty energy and with a high fat content, as well as physical inactivity combined with sedentary habits. Therefore, an interactive game platform called an active video game has been used, which can be used as a technological tool to promote the practice of physical activity and, thus, positively affect food consumption by stimulating healthy habits. OBJECTIVE: evaluated the impact of active video games, with the aid of gamification, on the frequency of consumption of unhealthy foods among overweight or obese teenagers. It is a controlled intervention study with two comparison groups: an experimental and a control group (without intervention), developed in two public schools (one for each group) of elementary education in the city of Campina Grande - PB. The participants of the experimental group performed physical activity with the aid of an exergame (XBOX 360), three times a week, with a duration of 50 minutes each session, in the period of eight weeks, associated with gamification. The data were collected before and after the intervention, in both groups, being: nutritional status (body mass index and abdominal adiposity), food (frequency of consumption of unhealthy foods), lifestyle (level of physical activity, sedentary habit), sociodemographic (economic class, maternal education, sex, age, skin color). The data were evaluated using the chi-square test and McNemar using SPSS 22.0 and a significance level of 5% was adopted. The study was approved by the Ethics Committee (84019518.3.0000.5187), REBEC (RBC-2xn3g6) and Clinical Trials (NCT03532659). RESULTS: of the total, 76 teenagers completed the study, 40 belonging to the control group and 36 to the experimental group. As for sex, 51.3% were female; the highest percentage was in the age group equal to or greater than 12 years (71.1%). Screening time over two hours a day was reported by 86.8% of teenagers and an inactive lifestyle by 34.2%. 52.6% were classified as overweight and 68.5% of the teenagers had abdominal adiposity. In the comparison between the groups, there was no statistically significant difference regarding the frequency of consumption of unhealthy foods after the intervention. However, when comparing teenagers with themselves, before and after the intervention (intra-group comparison), there was a reduction in the weekly frequency for the consumption of some foods. CONCLUSION: It was possible to verify that the use of the active video game, as a PA practice tool, had an impact on the consumption of some unhealthy foods, such as chocolate, soft drink and popsicles.