Use of educational technologies in the promotion of children’s cardiovascular health: a systematic review

Abstract

Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of educational technologies for cardiovascular health promotion in children. Methods: A systematic review was carried out through a search in Biblioteca Virtual de Saúde, Comissão de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal do Nível Superior, EBSCOHot Information Services, and US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health databases, using the descriptors: play and plaything, cardiovascular diseases, child, and health promotion, between 2012 and 2019. Results: Eight articles were selected for this review. The identified technologies were based on low-tech interventions, such as play workshops, using tools such as CARDIOKIDS, the SI! program, MOVI-2, and activities with wide-ranging digital tools such as Fooya!, Fit2PlayTM, and the exergame cycling program. Conclusions: It is noteworthy that all of the analyzed interventions were effective and those that involved playing were better accepted by the children.

Active Video Games for Improving Mental Health and Physical Fitness—An Alternative for Children and Adolescents during Social Isolation: An Overview

“…In four moderate quality reviews, AVGs were identified as having a positive impact on weight reduction and BMI [30,33,35,37]. On the contrary, two reviews did not find a significant difference between the intervention and control groups in terms of reduction in BMI [30,32], revealing that interventions based on games have a relatively small effect on improving BMI in obese or overweight children [32].…”

“…Seventeen studies were included [18,[30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45], from which 7 were systematic reviews and meta-analysis [18,32,33,36,37,44,45]. All studies focused on children and adolescents of both sexes with an age ranged from 3 to 19 years.…”

“…None of the included reviews reported responses on the effects of AVGs on body composition. However, six reviews showed results of AVGs on the body mass index (BMI) of children and adolescents [30,32,33,35,37,44]. In four moderate quality reviews, AVGs were identified as having a positive impact on weight reduction and BMI [30,33,35,37].…”