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McDonald's UK CEO Blames Video Games for Childhood Obesity

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the fat-and-mean dept.

BoingBoing is reporting that Steve Eaterbrook, McDonald's UK CEO, says that video games are leading the charge in obesity. He does have the decency to at least admit fatty foods are a part of the problem, but points the finger at interactive games for keeping kids indoors and not out burning off energy. "According to The Times, McDonalds UK is 'on the brink of its best year for two decades'. The firm has enjoyed six per cent like-for-like sales growth in the last year. More than 88 million visits were made to McDonald's restaurants last month, up 10 million on the previous year." Don't forget, we have known for ages that video games make us fat and mean.

3 of 321 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Korea and Japan by Ogive17 · · Score: 1, Redundant

    And both of those countries have McDonalds and other fast food chains. What is your point?

    --
    "Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
  2. Re:Helmet Society by localman · · Score: 0, Redundant

    But nowadays it seems like everyone is scared to get up out of their chair.

    This is so apparent to me too... I don't have kids yet, so what do I know, but the level of fear I see in others is amazing. Everyone child-proofs their house and runs around protecting their kid. My terrible mother (note sarcasm) had no child-proofing to speak of and let me pretty much monitor myself for periods of time even before the age of four. Generally I played with blocks and toy cars. But once I remember I played with a electrical plug, got zapped, bawled, and respected electricity henceforth.

    I distinctly remembered being allowed, before age four, to go outside on my own (we lived on a fairly quiet city street) to friends houses. We'd play on the porch. Or at their place. Adults seemed to assume we were fine unless we notified them otherwise.

    At four we moved to a quieter town where I learned to ride a bike and my friends and I would be off for hours by ourselves. We used to intentionally crash our bikes into each other to try and knock each other off: sort of like jousting without lances. Sometimes we'd get cut up and bruised. And it just wasn't a big deal. I don't recall my parents ever trying to prevent me from minor injuries by limiting what I could do.

    Compared to what I see and hear today, it would appear my parents, and my friends parents were absolutely insane. Is the world actually that much more dangerous today? I tend to doubt it. I hope I can maintain a level of freedom for my kids to experience life. I hope that when they inevitably hurt themselves and get stitches (like I did) that I don't subsequently deny them freedom.

    Cheers.

  3. Re:Helmet Society by Bearpaw · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Well said. It's become such a pain for kids to go outside and do any exercises now, most figure why bother. We did some really crazy stuff as kids and, looking back, I'm surprised no one drowned. But somehow we all managed to survive.

    Millions of people a day drive without seatbelts and live to tell about it. Therefore, seatbelts are totally unnecessary. QEH.

    (QEB = "quod erat handwavandum")