Change4Life campaign strongly implies that gaming leads to death

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.