As a huge ping pong fan, I just have to pass this along:

Pingpong burns calories — 272 of them an hour for a 150-pound person, according to calorimetric analysis. This is not as many as singles tennis (544) or even doubles tennis (408), but a cool 102 more than would be burned by playing billiards for the same amount of time.

In fact, batting the ball about the table with friends on a regular basis may offer a nice mix of mental, physical and social benefits, says Dr. Gary Small, director of the Center on Aging at the University of California, Los Angeles.