Background: Currently, children’s dietary intake patterns do not meet prescribed dietary guidelines. Consequently, childhood obesity is one of the most serious health concerns. Therefore, innovative methods need to be developed and tested in order to effectively improve the dietary intake of children. Teaching children how to cope with the overwhelming number of unhealthy food cues could be conducted effectively by serious health games. Objective: The main aim of this study was to examine the effect of a serious health computer game on young children’s eating behavior and attitudes toward healthy and unhealthy foods. Methods: A cluster-randomized controlled trial with a between-group design was conducted (n=157; 8-12 years), wherein children played a game that promoted a healthy lifestyle or attended regular classes and did not play a game (control). The game was designed in collaboration with researchers and pilot-tested among a group of children repeatedly before conducting the experiment. After 1 week of playing, attitudes toward food snacks and actual intake (children could eat ad libitum from fruits or energy-dense snacks) was assessed. Results: The results showed that playing a serious health game did not have an effect on attitude toward fruits or energy-dense snacks or on the intake of fruits or less energy-dense snacks. Additional Bayesian analyses supported these findings. Conclusions: Serious health games are increasingly considered to be a potential effective intervention when it comes to behavior change. The results of the current study stress the importance of tailoring serious health games in order to be effective, because no effect was found on attitude or eating behavior. Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT05025995; https://tinyurl.com/mdd7wrjd

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Background: Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) affects between 4% and 8% of children worldwide. The treatment of choice is multimodal treatment. Multimodal interventions for ADHD may be improved by incorporating new treatments, such as treatment via serious video games. The Secret Trail of Moon (TSTM) is a virtual reality serious video game that was designed for cognitive training related to core ADHD symptoms and executive dysfunction. Objective: We aimed to describe the development and usability of TSTM. Methods: The usability study included 37 children and adolescents who tested TSTM during the early usability stage (preinclusion) of a randomized controlled clinical trial for testing the effectiveness of TSTM. Chi-square tests were performed to compare patients with ADHD (ADHD combined subtype vs inattentive subtype) and to compare frequent and infrequent video game players in the second study. We used SPSS version 20 for Macintosh (IBM Corporation). Results: A total of 31/37 (86%) and 30/37 (83%) of participants liked playing TSTM and wanted to continue playing TSTM, respectively. Further, 5/37 (14%) of participants reported that they experienced either perceived dizziness or virtual reality motion sickness. We found no statistically significant differences after comparing the ADHD combined subtype to the inattentive subtype and frequent video game players to infrequent video game players. Conclusions: Serious video games, such as TSTM, may complement the current multimodal approach for treating ADHD. Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04355065; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04355065

This is the abstract only. Read the full text free (open access) on the JMIR Serious Games website. JMIR is the leading ehealth publisher: fast peer-review - open access - high impact.