THURS-114 - The Impact of Exergaming on Women's Affective Responses to Exercise: Increasing Opportunities for Physical Activity

Brief Abstract Summary: Considering that only about 20% of U.S. adult women are meeting the minimum CDC physical activity recommendations for health, there is a need to explore new methods to increase physical activity participation in women. Exergaming is a novel, fun, interactive way to engage participants in physical activity, yet, to date, little is known about the affective response to exergaming vs. a traditional exercise bout, such as walking on a treadmill. Considering that positive affective responses to physical activity have been positively associated with future physical activity behavior, results from this ongoing study may help support the use of exergaming as a means to increase physical activity behavior in women.

Detailed abstract description: Despite strong evidence that regular physical activity (PA) is protective against adverse health outcomes, less than ½ of U.S. adults, and only ~20% of U.S. adult women, are meeting CDC minimum PA recommendations for health. Increasing PA among adults is a key Healthy People 2030 objective and yet evidence shows that PA engagement remains relatively unchanged. Thus, exploring opportunities to increase both access to PA opportunities, and ways to increase PA engagement, is an important public health priority area. Research suggests that positive affective responses to PA are associated with increased PA adherence. Recently, exergaming has emerged as a fun, interactive format for PA engagement, yet little is known about the potential for exergaming to increase PA participation in women. The purpose of this study was to compare affective responses to PA performed on a treadmill (walking/jogging) vs. a virtual-reality (VR) exergaming bout, in order to explore exergaming as a novel method to increase PA behavior in women.

Healthy, sedentary and lightly physically active women (n = 6; mean age 27.2 +/- 10.1 y) were recruited via on online survey. Participants completed: (1) an enrollment session which included the Physical Activity readiness Questionnaire, anthropometrics, and resting hemodynamics (heart rate and blood pressure); (2) a VR exergaming bout; and (3) a treadmill exercise bout. Each exercise bout lasted 13 min., which included a 3-min warm up and 10-min conditioning phase. Both the VR and treadmill sessions were designed to allow participants to exercise at moderate to vigorous intensity during the 10-min conditioning bout. Heart rate was recorded every two minutes for each exercise, along with maximum rate of perceived exertion (RPE), using the Borgh-20 scale. Short, qualitative interviews were conducted at the end of each session to assess participants’ affective responses to each exercise bout.

Although both peak and average HR during exergaming were higher than the treadmill exercise (t = 1.92, p= 0.10, trend; t = 2.12, p = 0.08, trend, respectively), max RPE was lower for the exergaming session vs. the treadmill exercise (t = -2.4, p = 0.07, trend). Compared to the treadmill exercise, participants reported that the exergaming session was novel and entertaining with representative descriptions including “that was awesome;” “it was really fun;” and “it was exciting.” When asked, all participants noted that they would recommend exergaming to a friend.

The results from this ongoing study are preliminary, however, it is noteworthy that women reported lower levels of perceived exertion, and more positive affective responses during the VR exercise, even though their physiological responses indicated a higher workload than the treadmill exercise. Considering that positive affective responses to PA are predictive of future PA participation, it is possible that VR-based exergaming may be an effective method for increasing PA in women.