Three girls ride on exercise bikes that feed into racing video games. (Submitted by Holly Bonds)

Bio: Holly Bonds, from Dartmouth, N.S., helped to create an interactive fitness facility for children that combined video games and exercise in 2005. She sold the company in 2009 and currently works for a green electricity company, although she continues to promote active gaming around the world.

My story: Everything in moderation, isn't that what they say? Well, maybe they are right. At least, that's what I discovered when it comes to video games. Guess what folks? They aren't all that bad! In fact, they helped save my son, and many, many other children from a life of certain of obesity and inactivity.

In 2005, I created a fitness club for kids that combined video games and exercise to get them moving.  I saw firsthand over the next few years how video games can help kids be active, and how they can help increase their self-esteem. So, before you are tempted to paint all video games with the same brush, let me tell you why I think that video games can be used for good, not evil.

A few years before, it was brought to my attention that my 13-year-old son Matthew was overweight. Yes, it had to be brought to my attention. Love is blind -- I did not choose to see that my son was struggling with a weight problem. Wait, it gets better: I was, and still am, an avid fitness fanatic. So, after the shock of hearing the news, I sat with my son and said simply, "we have a problem." He turned from the video game he was playing and said, "I know, Mom." 

I asked my son what kinds of activities he enjoyed and he came up with one:  playing video games. You see, I was one of the many parents that let their kids play video games for hours at a time and, looking back, I allowed it for two main reasons: it gave me time to relax, and it kept him at home, where it was safe and no one would kidnap him from the playground or run over him as he was crossing the street. Our fear of letting our kids outside is making them fat. So Matthew played video games much too often. I had to figure out a way to wean him off the games and get him active -- and I used video games to do it.

I had a friend who exercised on his elliptical trainer for an hour at a time. He said the only way he could do it was to duct tape a video game controller to the handlebars of the equipment -- he said he could exercise for hours that way. This idea of his popped into my head, and I thought I would try it to see if it would work with my son.

I bought exercise bikes that fed into Sony PlayStation 2, and a couple of Dance Dance Revolution pads. Matthew and his sister and all their friends played for hours. They would run upstairs from the rec room for water, breathless and sweaty. I had to yell down the stairs at the kids and beg them to stop exercising! That's when my husband James and I thought that a fitness club for kids would work:  

So, a few months later, I opened the first interactive fitness facilities in the world, Bulldog Interactive Fitness.  I have since sold it, but the clubs are open across Canada, and they are run by incredibly caring people. I encourage you to bring your kids and check it out if you live close to a club.

In the years I was involved, I saw children with low self-esteem walk into the club, more than half of them overweight, more than 90 per cent of them inactive. They came in, arms folded, eyes down -- after all, this was a place to exercise, and gym class was no fun to most. But they knew how to play video games, and they excelled at that, so they felt comfortable on the equipment right away.

The exercise bikes are connected, so several kids can race at the same time -- they are the cars that are in the games! Before long, they were peddling longer and faster and getting more fit with each car crash. They also made a whole new set of friends. Their parents reported better grades, better sleep patterns, and by their third visit, they were walking into the club like they owned the place. Their self-esteem had risen as their waistlines became smaller.

Everything in moderation -- that is the key. Parents: you set rules about bedtime, curfew, brushing teeth and homework. There needs to be rules about how long your kids can play video games. Ask them to sit on a stability ball when they play video games -- it is great for their core.  Set a limit and adhere to it. Use video games to your advantage.  

Video games can get the whole family moving, talking and sharing. The Nintendo Wii is a perfect example. It is fun for the whole family, no matter what the age range. I used video games to get kids fit. With a little imagination, you can do it too!