ABSTRACT
Approximately a decade ago, a fascinating and almost immediate divergence occurred in the research on games. Around the same time that learning scientists like James Gee and others had just started to study and write about the positive affordances of video games for learning and engagement (e.g., Gee, 2003; Shaffer, 2006; Squire & Jenkins, 2003), health and human development researchers became increasingly concerned with the potentially negative effects of video games as a type of sedentary behavior that could contribute to youth obesity and poor metabolism (e.g., Tremblay & Willms, 2003; Vandewater, Shim, & Caplovitz, 2004). Since then, research on games and learning has gained not only momentum but also traction in mainstream education (National Research Council, 2011), and the games for health movement is attempting to shift the negative health research conversation in a more positive direction, with the advent of games designed to inspire fitness and manage disease (Lu, Kharrazi, Gharghabi, & Thompson, 2013; Rahmani & Boren, 2012). Yet still the overall dichotomy has largely persisted, with different researchers from different fields asking very different questions: How do games affect our minds? How do games affect our bodies?
