Video game usage and excess weight
The National Obesity Forum indicates:
| “ | The figures highlighted by the "F as in Fat" annual report [Trust for America's Health 2007 Annual Report] were retrieved from the Data Resource Center on Child and Adolescent Health website. The analysis of these figures reveals a strong positive correlation between hours spent on TV/Video game play and the percentage of children classed as overweight per state. The state of Utah was acclaimed with the lowest percentage of children overweight, and was found to have the second lowest proportion of children spending 2 or more hours on TV/Video game play. The District of Columbia, found to have the highest percentage of overweight children, also had the highest percentage nationwide of children spending an incredible 4 hours plus in front of a screen.[2] | ” |
Slate reported in 2012:
| “ | The American Academy of Pediatrics tells parents that children’s total entertainment media time should not exceed two hours daily. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, average kids watch at least twice that much television. They also spend more than an hour per day online and another hour on video games. These activities, collectively called “screen time,” are widely blamed for the tripling of obesity rates in children since the 1980s.[3] | ” |
The University of Texas at Austin declares:
| “ | A study by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin suggests that watching television is not associated with children’s weight, but playing electronic games may be—especially for girls.
“Children with higher weight status spent moderate amounts of time playing electronic games, while children with lower weight status spent either a little or a lot of time playing electronic games,” said Dr. Elizabeth A. Vandewater, who led the study published in the February issue of the Journal of Adolescence. Although the greater weight/video game link was found in this study with girls, she noted that future studies may reveal similar findings for boys. Either way, the findings could be significant considering how many American children play electronic games.[4] |
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The Pittsburg Gazette reports: "A 2010 study from the Eastern Ontario Research Institute found video games to blame, chiefly because children, boys especially, tend to eat more when they're playing them."[5]
Contents
Irreligion, video game usage and obesity
See also: Irreligion, video game usage and obesity and Atheism and obesity
Relevant Magazine reported in a story about the journal article in The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion entitled No Other Gods Before Mario?: Game Preferences Among Atheistic and Religious Individuals:
| “ | A new study of 228 college students found that while just about everyone prefers video games to regular board games (duh), those who claim no religion vastly prefer video games compared to the religious peers. It's a small study, but the director, Chris Burris, has an interesting hypothesis about why atheists prefer video games. Burris believes that atheists tend to be less good at "generating emotionally evocative internal simulations of experience." Simply put, he believes that religious people tend to be more imaginative, and are able to craft their own sense of play around simple games, while non-religious people tend to prefer the concrete rules afforded by video games.[6] | ” |
As far as the relationship between irreligion and obesity, please examine the articles below:
Atheist Stephen Fry on video gaming
The atheist Stephen Fry said, "I do enjoy video gaming... In the early days of games, I would spend hours. I mean literally. I would find it would be 4am and I would say God I have be at work at 6."[7]
Exergaming
As far as "exergaming" (Video games which prompt the users to engage in physical activity), Slate reports:
| “ | After three months, “there was no evidence that children receiving the active video games were more active in general or at any time,” the authors wrote. (The year before, a similar study in New Zealand had shown only minor improvement with active games; kids weighed just a pound less after six months of "exergaming".)[8] | ” |
See also
Notes
- ↑ TV Video Games and obesity
- ↑ TV Video Games and obesity
- ↑ Are TV and Video Games Making Kids Fat?
- ↑ Video games rather than TV may be linked to childhood obesity, University of Texas at Austin news
- ↑ TV, video games linked to obesity, Pittsburg Gazette
- ↑ Why Do Atheists Like Video Games More Than Religious People Do?, Relevant Magazine
- ↑ Stephen Fry talks gaming
- ↑ Are TV and Video Games Making Kids Fat?
