If you are a gamer then you are likely, on average, to die younger than a non-gamer, if a new UK government campaign is to believed.
"The Government's Change4Life campaign upped the ante in drawing spurious links between games and premature death this week," reports games trade paper MCV.
The Change4Life ad campaign – which appears in a number of popular womens' weekly mags such as Star, Reveal and Heat - clearly implies that the image of a young gamer slumped in front of the TV is at increased risk of contracting heart disease and dying younger than non-gamers.
Games industry hits back
"Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft have all moved Heaven and Earth to provide a more socially embedded and (whisper it) healthy interactive experience with this generation of consoles," notes MCV editor Tim Ingham, commenting on the new government campaign, which is backed by the British Heart Foundation, Diabetes UK and Cancer Research.
"Change4Life's advertising campaign makes a mockery of everything the industry has achieved in the last decade," adds Ingham. "And it's bang out of order."
"Change4Life's heart-in-mouth scapegoating of the video games industry is a troubling indictment of a hypocritical Government which flashes us grins when we generate £4 billion a year for its depleted coffers; but which then turns its back and explicitly tells parents that we're KILLING THEIR CHILDREN."
Your comments (4) Click to add a new comment
linksys
March 10th 2009
4. **** it... its worth it..
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louis058
March 6th 2009
3. if you're young, then you get PE or Sport in school every week anyway, plus, at break, it's likely you'll be running around doing something, football maybe? and also, even being a gamer myself, that does NOT mean that i just sit around all day doing nothing, i go to clubs like Martial arts clubs and Swimming clubs, and most other people do the same... it's only if you're an adult gamer that there's danger of dying early from gaming :D
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technobrakes
March 6th 2009
2. Well said.
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pimlicosound
March 6th 2009
1. How can they possibly have any statistics to back up this claim?
If we say gaming has been very popular for 20 years, and most people start gaming around the age of 10, that would mean we'd be seeing a spate of dying 30-year-olds, withered through years of unhealthy gaming sessions.
But we're not. Are we?
Surely it's all based on a big assumption, not taking into account the possibility that gamers might also do other things, activities that balance out the time they spend on the sofa.
Anyway, it's totally hypocritical of the government to be stirring up health fear of sedentary indoor activities, after selling off school playing fields and scaremongering about paedophiles to the extent that children are barely let out of doors except to collect ASBOs.
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