SynthesisFrontiers in sports and active living2025
Effectiveness of active video games for promoting physical activity: an umbrella review.
Synthesis in Frontiers in sports and active living, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Screen Time, Unhealthy Eating Behaviors, and Associated Health Risks in Children: A Narrative Review.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Dynamic hand exercise recognition for game-based finger rehabilitation.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Non-immersive virtual reality games, sleep, and sedentary behavior in children.Frontiers in sports and active living · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Introduction: Active video games (AVG) have emerged as a potential strategy to combat global physical inactivity, transforming sedentary screen time into physical activity. However, the evidence on their effectiveness remains fragmented and heterogeneous. Objective: To synthesize the available evidence from systematic reviews on the effectiveness of active video games for promoting physical activity in different populations. Methods: An Umbrella Review (UR) was developed following PRIOR guidelines. Six databases were searched until April 2025. Systematic reviews that evaluated AVG and physical activity were included. Methodological quality was assessed with AMSTAR 2 and certainty of evidence with GRADE. Two independent reviewers performed selection and data extraction. Results: Twenty systematic reviews were included encompassing 418 unique primary studies with >180,000 participants. The most studied platforms were Nintendo Wii (16 reviews), Xbox Kinect (11 reviews), Dance Dance Revolution (8 reviews) and Pokémon Go (3 reviews). AVG consistently achieved light-moderate intensity (3-6 metabolic equivalents or METs) during gameplay. The overall effect was moderate (Hedges g = 0.525, 95%CI: 0.322-0.728) but with high heterogeneity ( Conclusions: AVG are effective for promoting physical activity during their use, especially in older adults and overweight individuals. However, the lack of methodological standardization makes it impossible to establish specific recommendations. Consensus on measures and protocols is urgently required to realize the potential of AVG as a public health tool.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.