A university lecturer has been given £5,000 to study the health benefits of the Nintendo Wii. Michael Duncan will work with schoolchildren for six weeks to see if the popular games console can improve fitness and tackle obesity.

Half of the children in the study will play Wii games, such as tennis, golf and boxing, during their school lunch break. The remainder will take part in their normal lunch-hour activities. All pupils will be fitted with an accelerometer that measures energy use from jumps, side turns and other movements. Duncan, a senior lecturer in exercise physiology at the University of Derby, hopes his research will determine whether computer games can benefit children.