May 9, 2008

Video Games and Fat kids

I'm an avid video gamer. I LOVE video games. I'll literally play for hours sometimes. I've read so many stories about why kids these days are so fat. Everything from the parents over indulging them with food, lack of exercise, school cafeteria food, etc.
Tangent - we all ate the same cafeteria food growing up and were never considered an obese generation. But the fact that many schools have cut PE out of the kids daily routine at school not only creates lazy fat kids, but teaches them there's nothing fun to do outside. They never get introduced to fun sports like soccor, baseball, etc since those are now too "dangerous" at school so unless the parents are into sports, the kids will probably never know what else there is to do.
Back to my point - Video games have also had the finger pointed at them as being a culprit to causing fat kids. Here's the thing, if anything, our generation has spent at least an equal amount of time playing video games, if not more, than today's kids--and we weren't fat as kids because of it. Proof - well if you had brothers, the proof lies there. You can probably remember the countless hours wasted in front of the TV playing games. But here's the real proof - video games have come a LONG way. It wasn't until I think N64 that you could even SAVE your game to pick up where you left off whenever you wanted. All the older systems we grew up on didn't have that capability so it pretty much forced kids to sit for hours and hours in front of the boob tube if they ever wanted to actually beat a game. And every kid I knew beat all the games they had. So there it is everyone! We can now rule out video games as being the culprit to obese kids. You're welcome.


JM said...

Um, I'd have to argue it's at least a contributor. But so's a $1 double cheeseburger at McD's on every street corner, and invading cultures whose idea of beauty is total tubbiness and live happily below the poverty line to enjoy the McD's. And the NO PE thing. God forbid our kids ever get hurt, we might have to sue. Because the system owes us if our kid takes a ball to the shin in PE, right? Damn liberals.

Sorry. 'Nuff said. (grrrrrrrr...)

chelsea said...

can i still use it as an excuse... cause i do love my video games. as for the PE. i think that is the biggest buch of BS! seriously PE is a joke! in hs you only have to take it for 2 years and all the PE kids do is sit around, do thier hair, and re-sharpie their eyebrows. they pretty much get credit for putting on ugly clothes and showing up

MB Newson said...

J - I agree it's a contributor NOW because of the lack of PE in elementary schools and overeating at ridiculously available fast food and because anything healthy whether at a restaurant or the grocery store will cost you twice as much as the unhealthy crap. Simply pointing out it's not the cause as some journalist (uninformed I might add) have indicated.

chelsea - touche.

Daniel said...

Well, since this is such an old post, no one will likely read this, so I'll keep it short: kids are fatter today because everyone is getting fatter today...well, most people. It has to do with calories and yes, video games might keep kids indoors, but I totally agree with you: we all played games back in the day too! Games get a bad rap for a lot of the crap (hey, I'm a poet and didn't even know it). I think after a few hours of TV/games, if you're kid is fat you simply toss him on an oversized ginnea pig (spelling?) trad mill thing and whip his ass until he passes out. Problem solved.