EAST LANSING, Mich. -- Michigan State University has been given a $284,000 grant to study the health effects of video games like Wii Fit and Dance Dance Revolution.

The university said Wei Peng and Brian Winn from the Department of Telecommunication, Information Studies and Media, and Karin Pfeiffer from the Department of Kinesiology, would use the grant to study "exergames" to see if they live up to their promises of health improvement.

“One of the purposes of our project is to measure the actual energy expenditure created by these games,” Peng said in a statement. “We want to see if playing the games can actually help you burn calories and help overweight and inactive people to lose weight.

The team is also in the works to develop a new physically-involved but similar type of game called Mount Olympus.

The 3D fantasy role-playing game would require players to move their upper and lower body in order to control their character’s movements.

Overweight or inactive college students will participate in the study.

The grant was given to the university through the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.