One of the issues facing today's teen-agers is obesity. Doctors stress that more teen-agers need to exercise more, or at least get their hearts pumping. They note that even a few minutes of cardio-vascular exercise can lead to a number of advantages for them, such as muscle tone, less plaque in the blood, and, of course, less body fat. In order to encourage this, I suggest more Xbox gaming.

Contrary to the rather staid image of a boy with a controller in hand concentrating on the television screen, a group of boys is a far different creature. Pummeling each other's virtual counterparts, they occasionally hit the real-life thing as well. Talking trash faster than they can skate down a stairwell railing, while at the same time communicating with each other to put them in the position so that their team can accomplish their mission.

A group of teen-age boys are not the members of the gang, but a force of nature. They easily expend enough calories to match the same boys on a basketball court. That level of energy expenditure can be a scary, but also works out for the boys health as well. After a good hour or so of gaming, they are out of breath, sweaty, and definitely ready for the showers.

There are other advantages to game-play as well. They are learning how to communicate with others on several levels at once, insulting their friends, insulting people that aren't there, and still finding ways to accomplish their virtual mission. Teamwork is assumed, as is finding the role that they fill better than anyone else. A boy finds out a lot about himself when under any fire, virtual or real.

It can be fun for spectators as well, as four boys running high on adrenalin are on an emotional high as well as physical. Because of that, they feel whatever they feel much more intensely than normal, and can fall faster than a rock, and fly faster than a rocket. There is nothing more fun than watching a group of boys taking names in the safety of their own home. There is nothing more natural or more nostalgic than looking at the four boys holding the controllers and remembering when that was you with a piece of plastic in your hands at the corner store with your friends.

Any game can provide benefits in terms of physical and mental health. There is the charge of adrenalin that gets the heart pumping, causing the blood to speed through the body. It can be interesting to watch the group of boys bond, and in ways that will cement them together in ways that merely going to the same school can't. And it's healthy behavior for boys of that age. Now, when they're doing that a decade later?well, at least they're not out committing crimes?