Video games cause obesity says McDonalds spokesman

[IainC]

Really.

No, really.


Props to Coyote for the link.

[Nebu]

What an absolute idiot.  He just defied everything I ever learned in medical school.

[Rendakor]

In addition to being retarded, they're also neonazis!

[schild]

There isn't enough time in the day to burn off a Big Mac.

[lesion]

"Then there’s a lifestyle element: there’s fewer green spaces and kids are sat home playing computer games on the TV when in the past they’d have been burning off energy outside."

This is his only mention of games in the entire piece.

MCDONALD'S SAYS FEWER GREEN SPACES ARE TO BLAME FOR OBESITY

(NSFW?) Substance edit: thanks to Coyote for this link.

[Roac]

(NSFW?) Substance edit: thanks to Coyote for this link.

...so... adults need places to work off extra calories too?  Happy Meal toy?

[DraconianOne]

"Then there’s a lifestyle element: there’s fewer green spaces and kids are sat home playing computer games on the TV when in the past they’d have been burning off energy outside."

This is his only mention of games in the entire piece.

Yeah - from all the commentary on gaming sites, you'd think he'd gone all Jack Thompson but it's nowhere close to what was actually in the article.  Admittedly, if he's going to make a point then he could have chosen a better target and been a little more informed about it.  How about 24 hour television?  The vastly reduced levels of Phys Ed in (UK) schools?  Changing eating habits?

Stupid fucking comment to make in the first place but the reportage on it is even dumber.

[El Gallo]

Oh my God, somebody said that kids eating shitty food and sitting on their asses playing video games all day long is an unhealthy combination. WE MUST GET ANGRY ON TEH INTARWEB UNTIL THIS HERESY IS WIPED FROM THE EARTH!!!11!one1!.

[WayAbvPar]

Video games may be part of the problem, but a bigger one IS lack of green spaces, or space altogether. Look at the housing developments being strewn all over suburbia these days- house built 20 feet apart, a postage stamp for a back yard...where are kids supposed to run around and play? In the street?

My brother and his wife are renting a house while their new one is being built. Their lot isn't terribly big, but it borders on a swath of trees. My 5 year old nephew is gone from dawn to dusk out in the woods playing with his friends. He has a passing interest in video games, but he is much happier out in the fresh air, using his imagination and running off his excess energy (of which he may have an inexhaustible supply). Coincidentally or not, he is skinny as a rail. Slightly above average height for his age, but like 30% for weight.

[Riggswolfe]

I think fear plays a big role in the U.S. at least. By that I mean that parents don't let their kids out because the pedophiles are standing out in the street just waiting for the kid to step outside. When I was a kid I was outside from the moment I got home from school until dinner or sometimes as late as 8pm if I convinced my mother that I ate somewhere else. Every night. And my mother was overprotective as hell.

[MrHat]

I think fear plays a big role in the U.S. at least. By that I mean that parents don't let their kids out because the pedophiles are standing out in the street just waiting for the kid to step outside. When I was a kid I was outside from the moment I got home from school until dinner or sometimes as late as 8pm if I convinced my mother that I ate somewhere else. Every night. And my mother was overprotective as hell.

I completely agree with you.

But have you looked at the sex offender list?  That shit IS scary.

[bhodi]

But have you looked at the sex offender list?  That shit IS scary.

Yeah, but something like 70% of sex offenses come from within the family.. so it's in fact better for the kid to be outside than indoors with uncle .

[Jain Zar]

I think fear plays a big role in the U.S. at least. By that I mean that parents don't let their kids out because the pedophiles are standing out in the street just waiting for the kid to step outside. When I was a kid I was outside from the moment I got home from school until dinner or sometimes as late as 8pm if I convinced my mother that I ate somewhere else. Every night. And my mother was overprotective as hell.

I completely agree with you.

But have you looked at the sex offender list?  That shit IS scary.

Those evil sick fucks have ALWAYS been around.  Its just we have finally come to accept they exist now.  Hell, a decent amount of the victimizers were victims in the first place.
(You would think people subjected to horrible things, or seeing first hand bad things happen to other people would be the biggest foes of such things, but they tend to be the biggest practitioners.   Kids of alcoholics become alkies themselves, abused kids become abusers... its FUCKED UP.  I had some bad shit happen to me.  My response?  NO MORE NO WAY.   Most people?  DURR ITS MY TURN TO DO IT.  What the fuck?)

Of course modern parenting and personal introspection ALWAYS seems to equal ITS SOMEBODY'S FAULT BUT MINE FOR EVERYTHING .  Kid is an asshole?  Its videogaming's fault.  You are a fat ass?  OMG MCDONALD'S IS TO BLAME.

Bullshit. 

[UnSub]

There have been some studies that show that children today, on average, get just as much exercise as they did years ago. A major difference is the amount of food they eat and the amount of fat that is in that food.

[SnakeCharmer]

There have been some studies that show that children today, on average, get just as much exercise as they did years ago. A major difference is the amount of food they eat and the amount of fat that is in that food.

You would also have a hard time convincing me that the growth hormones, pesticides, and the like aren't affecting kids, nevermind the way they are affecting adults.

[HaemishM]

And don't forget the ginormous amounts of high fructose corn syrup that's used as a cheap sweetener in just about every goddamn thing.

[Raph]

So I link to this story because I saw it here, and today it ends up on BoingBoing with a link to me. I think that means that I owe you guys credit for the additional fame, and you owe me bandwidth money.   

[Merusk]

I think fear plays a big role in the U.S. at least. By that I mean that parents don't let their kids out because the pedophiles are standing out in the street just waiting for the kid to step outside. When I was a kid I was outside from the moment I got home from school until dinner or sometimes as late as 8pm if I convinced my mother that I ate somewhere else. Every night. And my mother was overprotective as hell.

My parents yell at me for letting my kids play outside -- in my own back yard mind you -- without watching them like a hawk.  I asked them, "What about when I was a kid, and I was allowed free-roam of the whole subdivision?  Or how about the stories you used to tell me, dad, about being outside all day from dawn to dusk doing all kinds of shit we won't even get into without even checking in back at your house."

Their reply was, "Well things were different then.  There weren't all these people stealing kids and pedophiles and dangerous things going on and kids with guns."    As if, somehow, all of this appeared after the 1980's.  The 'kids with guns' comment tickled me the most, because not more than a week later my dad told me how he'd almost gotten shot as a child because he and his buddy had found one of the guns his buddy's dad owned.