You Can't Blame Video Games For Making You Fat Anymore

The Obesity Train in all it's glory
as seen on bmj.com

The supposed tie to video games and obesity has been called into question. New study shows that 12 year olds who play video games don't necessarily get fat. The study claims that "race, age and socioeconomic status were the strongest predictors" in regards to whether or not someone was going to take a ride on the obesity train. This is great news, now I have even more fodder for never leaving my room.

The study also reported that the children who used the internet frequently had better reading skills, meanwhile children who frequently played video games had better visuospatial skills. The catch to all this? The young gamers were reported to have poorer grades and low self-esteem.

This study shows that we're still pointing fingers at things that don't necessarily correlate to the issue at hand. Kids weren't moving around, video games caused that to happen, so let's blame video games for obesity. This is an issue that has also blamed television and computers. It's good to see that research is still being done into issues. It's also good to see things that I don't like being negated, but that's mainly because I'm petty.