A campaign aimed at stimulating young people in a bid to fight heart disease and diabetes has caused outrage in the gamer community for using videogames as a scapegoat. British games publication MCV has attacked Change4Life, a campaign set up by The British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research and Diabetes UK, which first stereotyped gamers as being prone to heart problems with a TV advert, and more recently implied that videogames lead to death.
A new magazine ad states "Risk an early death, just do nothing," and shows a disaffected youth playing videogames while looking miserable. MCV has taken great offense to this, especially with the new, funky, active face that gaming has been showing lately. The games news outlet is so incensed that it has lodged an official complaint with the Advertising Standards Authority.
While Change4Life isn't exactly lying when it implies that playing nothing but videogames isn't healthy, the continued focus on just gaming is certainly unfair. So far, the entire Change4Life campaign seems to have done little more than present videogames as a completely unhealthy activity and used it as a symbol of physical decline. Perhaps the next advert could show someone just sitting and reading a book? After all, there's even less activity there than with gaming. Oh wait, that wouldn't be acceptable, would it?
Let's stop the scapegoating, please.
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Contest:
5:40 PM on 03.06.2009
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/s
Maybe we need more DDR~
/discussion
Current world average: 66.12
Upper Paleolithic (Prehistoric): 33
Since the early 20th Century We've been on a steady rise from the 30-40 range thanks to modern medicine.
I'm fucking tired of people attacking one of my favourite things. patients use games to concentrate on something other than the excruciating pain of DYING. Again.. medical staff.... read some fucking recent articles that actually point out the merits of gaming.
I see what you did there.
Games aren't bad for you. Another study shows that Surgeons that play a video game daily make less mistakes than ones that don't. It improves hand-eye coordination. I'd also be willing to bet that if they did the same study with driving automobiles that it would reflect the same results. http://www.boston.com/news/local/connecticut/articles/2008/04/13/video_games_help_surgeons_refine_their_techniques/ There's also a few other articles that point towards games being helpful in this manner.
If you are on the side of change4life, why are you even at this website?
A hardcore gamer knows the benefits of gaming.
I guess I'm just from a generation where we didn't have game systems in our houses. And if we wanted to play the best ones, we had to find an arcade.
Finally: heart disease is caused by many other things, if you don't eat a properly balanced diet, don't exercise, smoke, use drugs, and drink, you will have a higher risk of going into cardiac arrest (even things such as age, race, sex and medications can cause heart disease). This isn't kindergarten health class, most everyone on this site should know these simple things. I'm positive that if you are on the internet, or intelligent enough to read, you should have already had someone tell you this. There is a multitude of causes for heart disease. It's absurd for anyone to point their finger and say that playing video games is going to cause you to have heart disease on its own. Those types of statements borderline on retarded. It's a faulty generalization, and you should check your logic before stating such nonsense.
How many kids do you honestly think get fat from reading too much? And how many do you think get fat from being dumped in front of a game by their parents? That is why there is a focus on gaming.
He's from my hometown (Kutztown, PA) and was best friends with my uncle throughout his life. It's sad to see somebody ape his style, but I doubt anyone will care.