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Can Health Gaming Apps Motivate You to Get Fit?
For many people, finding motivation to exercise is a challenge. Thankfully, there are Zombies chasing you.
At least that’s the approach of Zombies, Run!—one of more than 31,000 health and fitness apps on the market today, and one of the growing number of apps that use games to increase physical activity.
Gamification is currently the popular trend for mobile fitness app makers looking to cash in to help people get fit. Whether or not it’s the best way to exercise remains to be seen.
“It’s just been assumed that gamified apps will work, but there has been no research to show that they’re effective for people long-term,” said Cameron Lister, lead author of a new BYU study on gamified health apps appearing in the Journal of Medical Internet Research. “Does earning a badge on your screen actually change your health behavior?”
Lister, along with BYU health science professor Josh West, analyzed more than 2,000 health and fitness apps and found that the majority of the most popular and widely used apps feature gamification.
As part of their study, the duo also downloaded and used 132 of the apps personally to see how well they worked. In addition to Zombies, Run! they tried out:
Read More : http://www.newssum.com/can-health-gaming-apps-motivate-get-fit-3602
