Videogames make kids fat and violent

Swedish study finds that violent computer games can lead to aggressiveness and even criminality.
March 1, 2004: 2:56 PM EST

http://money.cnn.com/2004/03/01/news/funny/violent_games.reut/index.htm

I tend to think it is the other way around - kids make VIDEOGAMES fat and violent.

This is not a case of the product creating the market...the market is creating the product.

If kids don't go out and play enough, it is more likely to be related to parents not taking enough of a role in making sure that they do, rather than having another entertainment option.

I distrust any "blame the media" type answers. You can show a relationship, but causality is a much harder thing to get at.

An awful lot of avid readers are overweight.

Ban books I say.

Or maybe there is some weird correlation between any passive activity which results in not consuming the calories ingested during the day??

It is yet another cheap cop out trying to blame external forces for things that happen in the home, rather than just bucking up and saying that a parent really is responsible for raising their child.

Sad really...the boomer generation (which is the root of most of this stuff) seems completely incapable of taking responsibility for anything. Everything is a disease...or the media's fault...or how the result of their parent's actions...or the next generation just not having the same social conscience THEY did.

It seems much more likely to me that children not going out enough is probably the result of children being raised by the TV instead of parents...children being overweight is the result of parents giving treats and no boundaries or limits instead of firmhanded loving attention.

It is a bunch of crap.

Bah, overweight has to do with the person's gene pool. You either get a overweight genie or you don't. Even though you have the overweight gene you can still lose the weight, just takes work.

Most of us have the overweight gene in our DNA. Sure not working out will cause you to gain weight. But that's because they have the gene. It's just that simple. I know many people, who eat junk and sit all day infront of a computer. And they are skinner then me, and alot older.

I've played computer games since 1982. I was 166lbs in Highschool and I'm 175lbs today. 10 years later. Sorry I don't buy the "you play videogames, you will be fat".

Swedish study finds that violent computer games can lead to aggressiveness and even criminality.


Don't buy into this one either. Violent kids has to do with the envierment they are raised in. A kid sees his father beat his mother, that kid will beat his wife if he doesn't get help. A kid will do what his friends will do, just out of peer pressure, and make the wrong choices. Once again i'll use myself. I've played all types of violent games. I've seen on types of violent movies. I've never thought about, wanting to kill someone or hurt someone just because I could. I just defend myself. If someone tries to harm me, I fight back.

Were there overweight people in the middle ages? Are there overweight farmers who spend all day working from dawn to dusk?

It's not sitting down that makes people fat. Being fat, or more precisely obese, is inbred in our genes. Ever met that person who eats whole cows for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and inbetween and doesn't put on an ounce of weight? And that other person who eats a lettuce leaf a day and just keeps getting bigger and bigger?

Ok, food has a lot to do with it (and violence also - just eat nothing but proteinic food all day and don't do any exercise, you'll see what levels of aggessiveness you get) but to a person they have to be predisposed.

I do agree that children should be outdoors playing rather than indoors on the computer. They need to get some kind of physical activity. However, I don't think the video games are the ones causing them to stay inside. I know as a child, my mother would limit the amount of time I could play video games. It all falls back on the parents.

Same with violence. I've seen many violent movies. But, my parents have always taught me that violence was wrong.

Anyway, I'm rambling.

Artio Ohialehua

Bah, studies like that really irritate me. Did you see this quote from the article?
But it has been proved beyond dispute that people who watch a lot of violence on television develop aggressive behaviour
Too bad they backed this up in the article with exactly zero information and too bad they didn't link to the results of the study and how it was conducted. While I will say that I believe that what we watch and play affects us, playing video games does not turn a "normal" person into a violent criminal, but someone who is already going down that path could be given some nudges. I have seen the same argument for D&D,rock & roll music, the Harry Potter books and whatever the newest/popular video game on the block is (EQ, Quake, Doom, GTA, etc.).

And kids not knowing the difference between a game and reality? Um, do these people not remember being kids or something. It wasn't too long ago for me and I certainly knew the difference between a game, movie, book, etc. and reality. People that can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality already have a serious issue.

As for the getting fat part, hard to judge when it doesn't tell us what the kids are eating and how much exercise they get as opposed to their "control" group. You don't have to eat junk food while playing video games (though I will admit a lot of people do).

Video games do make kids fat and aggressive. And hanging around with tall people will make you taller. /nod.

/sarcasm off

"I do agree that children should be outdoors playing rather than indoors on the computer."

I agree. When I was a kid, I would leave the house at close to dawn and come back when the street lights came on.

I would ride my bike across town without a helmet. Sometimes even to the next town.

I would go swimming at the local lake or in the rivulet flowing out of it. Play in the local irrigation canal.

I would build tunnels and have dirt clod fights. Ride my motorcycle(80cc) in the grapevines(with a helmet). Build forts and have campfires and shoot a friend's 22 at jackrabbits.

If I allowed my kids to do what I was allowed to do when I was a kid, I would be put in jail and they would be taken from me for negligence.

I imagine many more of this type of article will be coming out around November when GTA: San Andreas is released. The media really loves to perptuate the myth that video games will cause people to go out and start killing people for the thrill of it. Considering how large the gaming industry is, crime would've skyrocketed in the 80s if that was even relatively true. The only people who kill others because of video games likely were aggresive to begin with or are in dire need of psychiatry.

Their wording also really irks me. They word it to sound like playing video games will actually cause your child to become fat. Sorry, overeating and under-exercising are the cause of that, not video games. Someone could play video games and live a very healthy lifestyle. It's not the game industries fault if parents allow their children to play video games all day.

I also don't understand how video games cause insomnia. Perhaps that was just poorly translated and she meant it causes sleep deprivation. Preventing yourself from sleeping isn't the same thing as having insomnia.

I know 'fat' people who spend hours running around playing soccer, going for long walks, are very active doing other sports, but will never be as thin as me, and I do exercise 2 hours a day, and sit at a computer at work and at home for approximately 10 hours a day. The only way I will become 'fat' is if I start eating 5 times more than what I should and don't do any exercise at all.
I have a friend who was as thin as me 8 years ago. Today he weighs about 90 kg (I am at 73 kg) and he is much more active at his work than I am at mine.

Food and exercise are important, but the person's predisposition is also.

And talking about aggressiveness, well, I have a very high adrenaline release (and it releases often and in large amounts believe me), so you could say I am very aggressive, but I try to control it, despite not liking to have to. The last fight I got into was 20 years ago, but I do get angry a lot :o

I suspect there's a range of predispositions from people who seem to cling to fat despite their best efforts and those who can't gain weight if you force feed them thousands of calories a day. In fact, twin studies bear this out.

But we live in a age when physical demands on most of us are almost non-existant and the calories are very, very easy to come by. Most of us will tend to get fat in that situation, because it is a good survival trait when we were starving in the Winter time. :p

Also, I know of people that exercise a lot too and aren't thin. They even eat moderately. I think maybe the big difference is that people used to be active pretty much all day long. I don't know that an hour or two at the gym makes up for 10 hours of inactivity.

As far as anger... there was just another study that showed a link between how often you angry and heart disease in men. :\

As far as anger... there was just another study that showed a link between how often you angry and heart disease in men. :\

Yea, I should know about that.
My grandfather (Father's father) died of a heart attack, and so did my father. My father had his first heart attack younger than I am now, but then he didnt have the metabolism and half the genes I do from my mother's half, which have always been healthier (in a way I can't really explain).
It also helps I've always been kinda sporty active in my youth (If being the one to beat in all the athletic competitions between schools between 11 and 15 is "kinda" active :p) and I've never smoked, don't drink, and just generally try to lead a healthy lifestyle, so hopefully I'll push my father's side age limit a few years. Hopefully. :robot:

One interesting study I read a while ago had to do with the release of stress hormones (which usually cause us to gain weight) and exposure to prolonged noise. (of course now I can't find it online to save my life) The basic result was: chronic exposure to loud noise leads to increased release of stress hormones which stimulate fat production. Chronic exposure to noise at lower levels still stimulated the stress hormone release, but not to as great an extent. The study didn't say "beign around noise makes you fat", but it certainly is interesting that the louder our society has become, the fatter we've become. Not that diet/exercise doesn't have an impact, but I think there are other factors which play into the whole issue as well.

As for aggression, there are several brain chemicals which cause aggressive activity, many of which are increased with increasing levels of testosterone (one reason why women tend to be less violent than men). Serotonin in fairly high levels (but not high enough to make you sick) can lead to a person sitting on the edge of 'fight or flight', meaning they have very short tempers and are likely to anger easily (personal experience). Also, again with the noise, chronic exposure to noise also tends to produce 'fight or flight' chemicals which can make a person edgy and easily angered. Caffeine and Nicotine as well.

I'm just having a hard time buying into the whole video games as a casual factor thing, when there is so much else going on around us which has the same effect.

Nobody bothers to blame the parents for letting their kids watch alot of TV or play alot of violent video games. Nobody blames the parents for making sure their kid understands the diffrence between video games and real life. It's obviously the video game company's fault for making high quality games and not the parents fault for being parents.
I am glad I can go out and buy quality games such as Gran Theft Auto and Resident Evil, I hope it stays that way. If these people get their way the only games you will see on shelves will be Mario and Mine Sweeper, so much for 10 Billion a year market.

In my opnion dont think the people who write these articles have every actually played a video game in their life.