The cops appear hot on 14-year-old Alex Dahlquist’s tail, and he’s getting frantic.
Pedaling madly on his stationary bike and staring into the screen before him, the high school freshman shrieks for help as sirens squawk behind his virtual vehicle.
“Oh, my God, I’ve got to get rid of this guy!” he screams.
As he pedals toward escape, Alex seems to forget his fast-pumping legs and the sweat dripping from his forehead — which is the point.
Twice a week Alex heads to the Carol Stream Park District’s foray into tackling childhood obesity — a youth gym called Power Play that is equipped with nothing but interactive fitness machines: video games, flashing colored lights and a symphony of bloops and bleeps.
Alex and his parents think video games were part of what led the 5-foot-9-inch boy to weigh 234 pounds at his tender age, so they figure they might also help slim him down.
During the hours Alex spends after school with a personal trainer, he also heaves weights and glides on an elliptical machine in the traditional exercise room. But his favorite workout comes in the arcade.
“This is more fun because it’s big screens and video games,” Alex said.
It is in this room that his trainer, Gina Gagliardi, sees extra effort.
“The difference with Alex in here is that he wants to do it,” Gagliardi said. “You have to keep it interesting.”
Figuring it is where the kids are spending much of their time anyway, more park districts and schools are using video games and interactive equipment to attack obesity.
Brian Romes, superintendent of recreation for the Carol Stream Park District, said he hatched the idea for Power Play at fitness industry expositions, where one of the current obsessions is youth obesity. The district charges $3 an hour in Power Play, and attendance has been spotty since the June 2 opening. But Romes said they are waiting for word to spread.
“If we can, in a sense, trick them into seeing this as entertainment, it can get them away from the sedentary life,” Romes said.
In addition to the stationary bike, the games spread across the 1,000-square-foot room include “Dance Dance Revolution,” which requires a player to jump around nine squares in rhythm to a song; “Trazer,” for which a user wears a belt to move in sync with a character on a screen, then responds to various dropping or flying objects; and “Makoto,” in which a player stands inside a triangle and lunges back and forth to bash a series of flashing colored lights on the three posts.
Alex said that he has been trying harder than ever to slim down since he began attending high school this year.
“High school is tougher and more serious,” Alex said. “There’s fitness tests, and I want to be able to do those.”