Video Games that Promote Healthy Eating can't Influence Children's Food Choices

Playing video games that promote healthy food, commonly known as "advergames", only help in increasing children's hunger and do not influence their food choices or encourage healthy eating, a new study says.

On the other hand, researchers from the Netherlands found children consuming higher calorie snacks after playing the game, Reuters reported.

"I think that the game elicits hunger, and children like (high calorie) snacks more than fruit snacks, so they chose the (high calorie) snacks," study lead author Frans Folkvord, a graduate student at the University of Amsterdam, told Reuters Health.

Folkvord and colleagues examined the effectiveness of online games available on websites of popular fast food chains, cereal or juice brands in inspiring kids to consume more fruits and vegetables rather than unhealthy snacks.

To analyze the point, researchers included more than 200 elementary school students. Children were divided into three groups and were given video games promoting candy, fruit and toys.  About 69 children were included in the control group and didn't play any video game.

Five minutes after playing the game, children were asked to choose from either a bowl of candy or a bowl of fruit. Children who played video games related to candy and fruits were found consuming more calories (202 and 183 calories respectively) compared to children who played toy games (130 calories) or children from the control group (106 calories).

After reaching a conclusion, researchers stated that these games help only in promoting hunger, not the food involved in the game.

"I think these advergames promote hunger," Folkvord told Reuters Health.

However, the current findings contradict a previous study in 2009 that found a Pac-Man video game influencing children's food choices, and children preferring fruits over chips after playing the game.

"It might have to do with the game. He's a very famous and familiar icon and he gets rewarded for eating healthy food and punished for eating unhealthy food," Sandra Calvert, a professor at Georgetown University who conducted the 2009 study, told Reuters.

Results of the current study have been published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.