We’ve heard much about the obesity problem in America over the past few years. Studies show nearly 1 in 5 American children are obese, with the numbers even higher in many minority and low income communities. It’s a problem important enough to the attention of the First Lady, whose Let’s Move campaign aims to reverse this trend.

On his HBO program Real Time the other night, comedian Bill Maher blamed video games as a major contributor to the obesity epidemic. There may be some truth to Maher’s rant. Certainly too much of anything (video games included) is a bad thing. Still, I think there are plenty of examples of games being a part of the solution as well. Fitness games for the Wii and Xbox Kinect have been decent sellers. I’ve certainly worked up a sweat playing “Rallyball” or Kinect Yoga in recent weeks.

Incorporating games or game-like elements as motivators for physical activity for kids has a lot of promise as well. At least, that’s the thinking behind a program like Zamzee (http://www.zamzee.com/). Zamzee is an online rewards program that incentivizes physical activity. In effect, it’s a technology aid that tries to “gamify” physical activity for teens.

Supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and HopeLab, Zamzee is an attempt to increase physical activity in teens, first by tracking activity, and then rewarding progress. Players wear a little activity tracker on their belts, which is a smart device that captures a teen's level of physical activity during the day, and then plugs into the computer via USB to upload their activity into an online data log. This allows teens to set goals, track progress, measure their activity versus others in their social network, etc.

To date, some six studies have been conducted, logging more than 10,000 days of activities from teens. These studies have shown that Zamzee participants have increased their activity levels by about 30%. (Or a more compelling way to put it- kids move on average an extra marathon a month.)

Worth noting, simply tracking progress wasn't the only incentive for Zamzee. No, participants were actually rewarded in the studies, with both virtual goods and actual cash gift cards. I do wonder whether or not these extrinsic rewards will help in the long run. Some studies have shown that adding extrinsic rewards to certain activities can increase interest in those activities in the short run, but decrease interest in those activities over time, especially when those extrinsic rewards are taken away.

I worry that the Zamzee approach may tie exercise too closely with "get other stuff." What happens when a Zamzee success story is too old for the program? Has he or she been conditioned to expect that moving = getting external rewards? The idea, of course, is that the initial extrinsic incentives will catalyze beginning to be more active, and in the process, teens will realize all the other, more intrinsic rewards to exercise: being healthier, more fit, better performance in sports and other activities, improved self-image, increased energy, and so on. It'll be interesting to see what the longterm impact of a program like Zamzee will be. But it's clear that the obesity epidemic is being taken very seriously, and that there are many people in the world of serious games intent on being a part of the solution.