A Little-known Benefit of Exercise

I love Kellogg’s Vanilla Crème Frosted Mini-Wheats. When they go on sale, I’ve been known to buy four boxes to tide me over until the next time they’re discounted. They’re so good, and so good for you.

Now, I must say that KVCRM-W has always struck me as the type of cereal that would appeal mainly to upper-middle class women of a certain age (I’m neither that rich nor that old, yet). Its box is a soothing beige color, and the word “cream” in its name is written French style, accented è and all. It just doesn’t seem like the sort of cereal that would grab a kid’s attention.

That being said, I was surprised when I looked at the side of my cereal box recently and saw helpful hints for achieving—of all things—better video game scores. And what, you may ask, was the “secret weapon” to help gamers “Have more energy. Be more alert. Raise your self-confidence”? Exercise.

That’s right—the makers of Xbox are urging you to ride your bike, play sports, or even run around the block, then “Now that your heart’s really beating, get pumped about beating your best score!” Bizarre.

Considering the rising rate of obesity in our country, I suppose anything that gets kids exercising more is a positive thing, but encouraging them to work their heart a few minutes so their hours of sedentary game-play will be more productive just seems counterintuitive to me.