McDonald's UK CEO Blames Video Games for Childhood Obesity

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.

Comments

The Layer Cake of Disappointment

[eldavojohn]

We have a problem with obesity--increasingly with children.

Disappointment Level One: Someone, somewhere decided that it is one single factor contributing to this, not a combination. Blame is absolute and illogically must be placed on one thing.

Disappointment Level Two: The media reinforces Lvl 1 idea and is on a witch hunt.

Disappointment Level Three: Each alleged witch further exacerbates by shifting blame to another witch, none of them ever admitting to being part of the problem. Once a new target is acquired, they escape the public eye.

Disappointment Level Four: Lvls 1-3 act as a free pass to parents. There are so many witches to point at, surely nothing they have done resulted in this. Again, no responsibility is taken.

And all the while, we're setting ourselves up for a diabetes explosion. Although many have claimed it's been on the horizon for a long time, the numbers are starting to creep. Enjoy eating through all four layers of that cake!

Re:The Layer Cake of Disappointment

[TeknoDragon]

It's almost like Easterbrook said in the original article:

"I don't know who is to blame," Mr Easterbrook says. "The issue of obesity is complex and is absolutely one our society is facing, there's no denial about that, but if you break it down I think there's an education piece: how can we better communicate to individuals the importance of a balanced diet and taking care of themselves? 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.

"The Government has a part to play, individuals have a responsibility and so does the food and drink industry. These are the three pillars that need to work together and demonstrate that they have a commitment to solving the issue. We're front and centre of the diet piece of the debate and, as a large business with a big influence, it is a responsibility that we accept as a leader in our sector."

Government responsibility, individual responsibility, industry responsibility have to be in sync to solve the issue.

Re:The Layer Cake of Disappointment

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

CORN! Corn? Yes. Corn.

Destroy ADM and Cargill, today!

Re:The Layer Cake of Disappointment

[Applekid]

I read your entire post and it's well thought out and interesting.

But, I have to admit, I sort of wanted some cake to go with it. And maybe a tall glass of whole milk. Duh, of course there should be chocolate syrup in the milk.

Re:The Layer Cake of Disappointment

[JeepFanatic]

In the case of children, you also have to include PARENTAL responsibility.

Re:The Layer Cake of Disappointment

[CastrTroy]

Reminds me of a George Carlin act I was listening to. When the kids turn out good, they take all the credit. When the kids turn out bad, they put the blame on something else, like rock music, video games, fast food, or whatever the evil-du-jour is. I'm a parent, and I know how hard it is to raise kids, but I believe that how my kid turns out has a lot to do with how good I am at being a parent. I had video games, rock music, and fast food when I was a kid, but that doesn't mean I didn't turn out well.

Re:The Layer Cake of Disappointment

[mmalove]

Ehhhhhh, kinda. On the one hand, companies could certainly always be more forthcoming about what they are selling to kids, the action packed in your face commercialism that surrounds ever more creative ways to sell a wad of corn syrup needs to be reigned in. But that's not the real issue, the one driving that kind of commercialism.

The real issue is a underdeveloped sense of pro active thinking in young minds. Less and less are kids encouraged to think critically, more and more are they spoon fed. I trust that marketing minds are doing whatever it is that generates them the most profits and sales, and their weapon of choice is the action packed, emotionally charged, factless message (works for politics too). It's an issue of education, but I don't think it's because kids don't know sugar without exercise makes you fat. It's because they don't care. They don't really think about life when they're 40. They don't build the habits that reward not through instant gratification, but long term success and health. And we say, well they're just kids, they'll learn that later. But look around, and tell me they learned it later.

If the world went on a heatlh kick, and people consistently acted in their own best interest in terms of diet, McDonalds would go out of business, or undergo a very significant menu change. Oh yes, they've introduced the premier "salad" to their menu, sure. Is there a salad happy meal? Batter coated fried chicken paste wins the taste buds of the youngest generation, not the health conscious choice.

Re:The Layer Cake of Disappointment

[kannibal_klown]

To play devil's advocate, it's possible (and likely) that two siblings get treated differently, especially if they're not twins.

• He's your younger brother, you played a role in his development while there's a chance you didn't have an older brother to play a role in yours. Parents do not make up the raising environment alone, and a 2nd/3rd/4th child may easily experience different raising styles because of the older siblings.
• Parents can have completely different raising styles between children, I've seen it first-hand. One example (though not the only)
  • The first is raised strictly
  • The second is more lax, since they feel they didn't need to be "as" strict on the first
  • The third is the most strict of all because the family realized they were too leniant on the second
  • etc
• Maybe one brother has one personality while the other has a completely different
• etc

Re:The Layer Cake of Disappointment

[poticlin]

Fully Agree with you there! Actually, I would say it is mostly Parental responsibility as children are brought to Fatty Restaurant where the food is bought by mom and dad. Video Games are bought and "supervised" by the parents. Balance Diet : Have you ever seen kids cook?
What is Fatty restaurant's responsibility involved here? or Video game industry? It's all about education...

Re:The Layer Cake of Disappointment

[Roger W Moore]

Telling everyone that X is bad and Y is good and you should avoid X and do Y instead just makes people resentful, because they like doing X and then feel guilty when they do it.

Actually it is a lot worse than that. Part of the problem is that the media jump all over new results and publicize them before they have been scientifically confirmed (although the huge number of conflicting reports which the medical profession apparently produces does give one pause to consider the level of scientific rigour). As a result the message tends to be: X is good and Y is bad. Oops sorry, actually X is bad too, oh now Y is good, err...sorry actually neither are particularly great, have you tried Z? ...and so on. So is it any wonder than most people just ignore it and do what they want?

Re:The Layer Cake of Disappointment

[spun]

We gave the Native Americans smallpox and booze, they gave us tobacco and corn. It only looks like we came out ahead in that deal...

Re:The Layer Cake of Disappointment

[dada21]

You're right about sugar being a big cause of obesity (not fat), but McDonald's isn't really to blame. When I met my (now) wife, I had never been a big carb eater. I was always a meat & cheese kinda guy. She introduced me to pasta, sugary snacks, potato chips, and other stuff. I went from my "anorexic" 140lbs to 190lbs in less than a year. When I realized I was fat, I thought it was because I was eating too many fatty foods, so I cut my fats out entirely. I gained even more weight. Thanks to Dr. Atkins and about 12 months of diet research, I then proceeded to reduce my sugars, increase fiber and healthy fats, and I lost my weight back to 140-150lbs. Some of my meals were at McDonalds, too. At one point, I ate McD's almost every day, and continued to lose weight while getting my blood pressure and bad cholesterol levels lower.

Americans are sickeningly fat, but it isn't video games or McDonalds -- its their love of sugar and sugar-like products (HFCS). I can't believe how many unbelievably fat people I know, and I know I'll have to pay for their early retirement because they won't stop shoving candy into their mouths. Cola soda is candy. "Healthy" Granola is candy. Most of the products on Weight Watchers are candy. Don't these fat people see that they're not only killing themselves, but they're putting the cost on me and others who decide to live healthy?

Here's a reason why I detest single-payer healthcare: because people will have LESS reason to live a healthy lifestyle. I haven't been to the doctor in years except for my annual checkup. I haven't been sick in years, either. And yet I know my health costs go up because of the people who refuse to look into what ails them in terms of weight problems.

Re:The Layer Cake of Disappointment

[Simon Brooke]

When I was six, I used to walk a mile to school - and a mile back - every day. In the summer all through my chidhood, I'd make myself a sandwich before anyone else was up, and be out in the woods until evening - or else, later on, drop down river in my boat on the outgoing tide and come back in on the next. When I was twelve, I used to cycle twenty miles up into the hills with a friend - and, at the end of the day, twenty miles back. Kids these days aren't allowed to do that sort of thing. They're driven everywhere. They get no time to be out by themselves. The sea - the roads - the woods - are all suddenly 'too dangerous' for kids.

It isn't video games - at least, not mostly. It's over-protection. Of course, the over-protected, housebound kids then have to be entertained, so they get given video games. Diet doesn't help, this much is true. But the real problem is over-protection.

Re:The Layer Cake of Disappointment

[xtracto]

It is all about parental responsability. The problem is that first, it is the parents who are not educated to eat healtly, they are the first ones to take their kids to McDonalds and the like; second, because they do not like responsability, they blame whatever is to blame right now. McDonalds is just a food provider, just like any other (take the healthier choices like subway or 100% natural), however while they get a lot of demand of junk food, they will continue to produce it.

The issue here is that the government should educate the parents but in the USA you are talking about people that think "wtf I dont like the government telling me what to do". Or at least, try to educate the kids.

I've got two examples of that. One is here in the UK, I read some time ago that some schools in Scotlands where implementing a "points" program for kids lunch. They provide certain healthy menu, but the problem they had is that kids went to buy crap food, so they made each food had some points in value and kids could then change the points for videogames and the like.

Such thing would not work in the USA because of the mentality of the parents (wtf you [the government] are inciting my kids to eat something!!).

The second example is related to "teaching kids". Campeche, Mexico used to be a very very dirty city (I lived there for 15 years). However, something like 7 years ago, the government established a program that thaught in government schools (where the majority of kids go) about polluting and thrash issues. It was amazing that you could see that the kids *told* to their parents to pick up the thrash when they threw it by the street. It was the kids who where educating the parents! If you go to the city now, there is an outstanding difference.

But hey, let everybody blame everybody else. Of course McDonalds won't say that the parents are to blame because they would be shooting themselves in the foot by attacking their customers.

Re:The Layer Cake of Disappointment

[cluckshot]

I own chickens. It might seem unrelated but in owning chickens I wanted to learn how best to feed them. (I learned much about their nutrition and the epidemic of obesity in the industrialized world by this.) So I went to the local feed suppliers and tried to determine the best diet for feeding the birds. The answer to the question of how best to feed the birds was always another question that made no sense. "How much Antibiotics do you want?" was the answer! After getting this illogical response about 6 times, and eliminating disease as a reason for this, I finally got it out of the feed suppliers what is going on. Chickens gain 1.3 times as much weight per pound of food consumed when fed antibiotics as when they are not fed them. Typically Chickens convert about 3kg of feed into 1kg of chicken meat but when fed antibiotics it only takes 2.3kg of feed to produce 1kg of chicken meat.

Shortly there after I learned that this was a fairly typical gain associated with feeding animals. I learned that chickens being such high efficiency converters of food into meat and eggs also didn't alter the feed that much in its content. The Future Farmers of America (FFA) typically has an experiment that shows this very well. It involves feeding a laying hen purple dyed food. The egg yolks from that hen become purple!

I learned a lot more about the breeding of birds in the years that passed and about their raising. A typical farm raised bird is sold with about a 4% margin to the farm. This leaves the farm about 25% "under water" financially if the do not feed antibiotics. This is also typical in most meat production. Unless the meat is specifically raised without antibiotics it has them in it. These antibiotics pass through to the one eating the meat and they affect that person exactly as the feed animal. How this works is pretty simple and leads right into our epidemic of fat people. Antibiotics screw of the Glucose metabolism causing Hyperglycemia. Bluntly they cause a temporary diabetic episode. This triggers insulin release and begins damage towards type II diabetes. This causes almost instant weight gain in the individual. But this is hardly all of it regards our feed animals.

McDonald's Corporation, KFC and several other major US food delivery companies have done tremendous research now covering something close to 70 years to optimize user demand and to breed foods that stimulate demand. Chickens for example are highly genetically altered through breeding and other processes so that they produce meat of this profile. Similarly most meat animals have been modified this way. In addition our vegetable crops have been altered this way as well. This modification has come to dominate the production of most food crops in the USA. Potatoes and many other crops have become altered to achieve the goals of McDonald's et al. The essential demand increase is to produce a food that demands more food by screwing up blood sugar. As a result a person gets a very high blood sugar followed by a very low one. This is very nearly a profile for diabetes and weight gain. If you are a farmer, it is very nearly impossible to get farm loans and such to raise crops outside this genetic and marketing chain. As a result it is beyond doubt that McDonald's and other similar institutions have caused our epidemic of obesity. Their success in genetic and farming control is about 20 years old now and it corresponds directly to the time when this obesity started developing dramatically. It is so deep and so profound in the food chain in North America, that it is quite possible to point out that even a vegan who never ate at McDonald's could be proved to have problems directly traced to McDonalds et al.

The point here isn't to divorce any personal responsibility from the system. Rather to point out that it is a far lessor factor than we might like to think. Frankly it has fallen to a trivial level of consideration. The real issue here is when will be realize that our foods have been screwed up to the point wher

By that logic....

[Rooked_One]

does fast food cause violence?

Re:By that logic....

[AbsoluteXyro]

Violent diarrhea maybe...

Re:By that logic....

[Anonymous Coward]

Violent diarrhea maybe... But in my experience, it doesn't stop at violent diarrhea, there are several more types caused by fast food:

• Explosive
• Projectile
• Neverending
• Reverse
• Liquid
• Instant
• Presidential
• Quad Core

Re:By that logic....

[elrous0]

It does when it's 1 minute past breakfast and I'm trying to get an egg McMuffin.

Re:By that logic....

[Chosen Reject]

Are you crazy? That's utter poppycock hogwash. Everyone knows you always get the Diet Coke with your large order of fries.

Helmet Society

[Aeonite]

As I said on this site:

There's a lot to be said for this, but I think the finger should be pointed past the video games and towards an overprotective and overly litigious society.

When I was growing up we had our Nintendos and Segas and Ataris and Intellivisions and Apple IIe computers, but we only played around with those for a few hours, and then we'd go outside and play baseball or football or street hockey, or merely ride our bikes around the neighborhood for a few more hours.

But nowadays it seems like everyone is scared to get up out of their chair. Are you going to ride a bike? Better wear a helmet, get some reflectors, ride with a friend, attach a siren, etc. Going to play street hockey? Better wear a helmet and a bunch of pads and secure the services of a lawyer so you can sue the first person who body checks you into a parked car. Going for a walk? Better rethink that - you might get abducted by a stranger. Gym class? Recess? Are you mad? You might fall and skin a knee.

We didn't take precautions when we played when I was growing up. And you know what? We survived. We did amazing crazy things. We played tackle football in the street. We threw rocks at each other. And no matter what we did we didn't wear helmets. And the worst that came from all of it is one of my friends got a broken arm once.

I think we need more Nietzsche and less nurture. "That which does not kill me makes me stronger." Because that which does not make me stronger is killing me.

Re:Helmet Society

[moderatorrater]

According to this study, activity levels for children stay the same no matter what they're forced to do, ie if they're not active at home they'll be active at school and vice versa. A child will be active no matter what they do for play. My little brother and his friends start to get overly energetic when they play video games for too long, and then they quit and run around for a while. It should also be mentioned that this same brother plays video games more than anyone I know, and he's also skinnier than average.

Re:Helmet Society

[Amouth]

luckly i had a metal plate installed in my skull as a child due to a birth defect (still sets off good metal detectors). i consider my self quite hard headed.. there for screw helmets for me..

p.s. if i crack my skull open take some pictures and show them to me later - i want to see what the plate looks like..

Re:Helmet Society

[garcia]

We didn't take precautions when we played when I was growing up. And you know what? We survived. We did amazing crazy things. We played tackle football in the street. We threw rocks at each other. And no matter what we did we didn't wear helmets. And the worst that came from all of it is one of my friends got a broken arm once.

I have a friend that just recently had his fourth child (they are all 5 and under) and he said to me, "I need to buy a farm. I can't allow my children to do what I was able to do -- like ride my bike all over town." I asked, "why not?" Now, I want to mention that I wasn't allowed out of sight of my house on a bike until I was probably 12 and even then I had to be within earshot and 5 minutes of my father's whistle (which had quite a range). His reply, "They can't be trusted."

So it has nothing to do with litigious society, etc, it has to do with parents realizing what they got away with as kids (surviving, yes) and attempting to stop it for their children. What these people don't realize is that kids are still going to get hurt, get abducted, steal shit, fuck, drink and do drugs. All that's going to happen is that they are going to find ways that we didn't think of to get it done.

Back on topic:

While what McDonald's UK douche says is true, it's also very true that the "Fast Food Nation" (sponsored heartily by communities like the one I live in where the little guy is ignored while the big box and chain restaurants are encouraged to thrive by the Council) is also killing us. I've read several books like Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally and similarly Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life which mention the advantages of local eating, home cooking, and healthy lifestyles. I'm really going to attempt to get into Community Supported Agriculture, get out to our local farmers' market more than 1x a month, and stop eating out nearly as much as I was.

We've traded dangers from biking without a helmet, pads and an orange flag with blinking LEDs to eating foods with 50% of your daily need of fat, 75% of your calories and loaded with high fructose corn syrup. One might take 15 to 20 years to kill you rather than 15 to 20 seconds but we need to decide which is better.

Happy Meals need to be replaced with Happy Medium.

Re:Helmet Society

[Rinikusu]

I've been noticing for years the trend of "wussifying" our youth. You're right, when we were kids (I'm in my mid-30s), I played in ditches, played soccer, got beat-up by the neighborhood bully, rode bikes on the trails and make "jumps", played lots of hide and go seek or kick the can, we ran home from school, ran down the street, just being kids.

You know what ruined it for me?

Air Conditioning. Cheap electricity, Central A/C, and summers just got too hot to bother going out in. Heating in the winter made going out in it too cold, nevermind our forebears survived quite handily. A couple years ago, I started an experiment. I quit using the A/C except for when I was expecting company. I opened up my windows, turned on a fan to circulate the air, and wouldn't you know it? I was hot, but after a couple weeks, I got used to it. Walking into an office building felt like I was walking into a meat freezer. My electricity bill halved, if not more. I was amazed. I went out for walks more. I lost 30 pounds that summer, because it was no longer "too hot" to go outside.

SO, I don't think it's video games, for sure. Video games are just what you do when it's too hot to go outside, and it becomes a habit. Turn off your a/c, let your athlon crank your room to 120 degrees, and you'll *want* to go do something else for awhile. :)

Re:Helmet Society

[CannonballHead]

Skinny doesn't necessarily mean healthy, though.

I'm still in college, and there are still students in college that literally go to class, get food to-go from the cafeteria, and sit and play video games until 2am. Some of them are still "good students," others definitely let their grades slide because of computer games.

Do computer games help obesity/health? No, they don't, I hope we can ALL agree on that. Do they hinder it? I think they do hinder it a little bit. How many people spend hours upon hours, each day, often late into the night (loss of sleep? not healthy!) playing WoW? Of course, you could argue that this is because they weren't taught that they need to go to bed, or perhaps that their parents told them to and they don't, or whatever... but, at the very least, WoW is the way they choose to lose their sleep. And it's not out of boredom all the time. I don't have TIME to play games while I'm in school... there's plenty more to do, but some people HAVE decided that WoW is the single most important thing in their life.

Back to being skinny, by the way, I know a lot of gamers that look very unhealthy, look like they don't sleep, are always eating fast food, and are very skinny, hehe. Actually, I know some gamers, too, that are quite healthy, drink tons of water, don't eat fast food, work out, etc... but they still spend a ton of time playing games, and a ton of money buying 8800GTS video cards for their computers to play a virtual reality.

Maybe part of the problem is we have taught our kids to ignore reality and to try to seek a virtual reality, instead of trying to make the REAL reality better? Hm.

Re:Helmet Society

[irm]

What you describe is more problematic than you think. The introduction of both air conditioning and electric lighting allowed architects to abandon or ignore fundamental issues of light and air in their work. In all likelihood, the house you live in was design with the assumption that you would use air conditioning during the summer months. Have you ever looked at vernacular building practices in hot climates? Ceilings are often over-height, there is frequently a large thermal mass component, there are usually few openings on the west elevation, and so on.

Air conditioning fosters laziness in architects; had your home been designed knowing air condition would not be used, the result would be radically different. Indeed, it would be more comfortable. Cars are effectively the same: cheap energy results in lazy designers.

I should add that none of this is meant to imply a regressive approach to building and city making, as the new urbanists frequently advocate to our peril. Indeed, the very best modern and contemporary architecture endeavour s to incorporate such issues.

Hm...

[Smordnys s'regrepsA]

He must not have heard of the Wii ;)

In other news...

[volpone]

The tobacco industry claimed that great sex causes lung cancer.

Re:In other news...

[Sergeant Pepper]

The tobacco industry claimed that great sex causes lung cancer. At least I'll get to live a long and healthy life.

A bit hypocritical?

[Joe Random]

So McDonald's emphasizes personal responsibility when it involves what people eat, but not when it involves their recreational activities?

In related news

[Sciros]

1) Philip Morris say video games are promoting smoking among children.

2) KKK Grand Wizard says video games are making children racist.

3) Exxon-Mobil says video games make children averse to renewable energy.

4) McDonald's CEO is a peen.

Re:In related news

[eclectro]

Laugh as you might, but fat kids are contributing to global warming with all the extra methane they are releasing.
When people finally realize this, something will finally be done about it.

Re:In related news

[Plutonite]

What I find very funny, and utterly confusing, is that fear-mongering, war-waging politicians who are perfectly OK with us going to war with non-threatening nations half way around the world and killing (or indirectly causing the death of) hundreds of thousands of innocent people, are making all kinds of accusations against video games being encouraging of violence. Holy shit, ya know? I am perfectly willing to accept some sort of objective psychological study that manages to make a good case for that sort of thing (although I doubt it will ever happen). But politicians? American politicians? Gimme a break.

Video Game makers blame McDonalds for bad games

[neo]

In a statement made by the United Video Game Designers of the UK, stated ...

"Clearly our reliance on fast food, particularly McDonald's, has caused us to become unimaginative and lackluster in our new game designs. By buying initially from the value menu and then going to super sized items we have replicated this trained up-sell response in our own games. We haven't made an original game since Doom. We even tried watching Super Size Me 10 times, but that only made one designer go completely mad and make a copy of Burger Time. We can only hope that McDonald's changes the way they sell food items so that we can again create new and innovative games that people around the world will become lethargic blobs of goo playing. Thank you."

First soda, now burgers

[hansamurai]

Soda companies blamed video games a bit back, and then back peddled on their statement.

http://kotaku.com/335546/soda-companies-blame-videogames-for-fat-kids

Except that he is right in part.

[LWATCDR]

There are lots of things causing the problem.
Blaming McDonald's is kind of silly. Don't raise your kids on a diet of McDonald's. It is supposed to be a treat and not a diet.
You feed your kids the big breakfast at IHOP the same thing will happen. Again it is supposed to be a treat and not a diet.
Letting your kids play video games for hours on end. Also not a good plan.
Letting them sit in front of the TV is also not a good plan.
Frankly I am amazed at the amount of passive entertainment we have available to all of us. With NetFlix, PVP, PVRs, Cable, Video Games, and the Internet there is always something worth while to watch or read or play.
A kid today doesn't need to find something to entertain themselves with.
Combine that with traffic today and all the fears over safety, and both parents working kids are often raised on a diet of video and fast food. It isn't bread and circuses it is Burgers and Playstations.
I have noticed that McDonald's is offering some better choices on the menu as well.
So don't dismiss video games just because you like them.

BTW if you don't think the techie life style contributes to the problem take a look around your office.

Re:Except that he is right in part.

[dvice_null]

> Blaming McDonald's is kind of silly. Don't raise your kids on a diet of McDonald's. It is supposed to be a treat and not a diet.

Actually you can blame them for marketing. It is a known fact that marketing affects people and they market a lot. Their marketing is directly connected to the amount of fast food people buy. If it wouldn't be, they wouldn't do the marketing as that wouldn't be worth of it.

Korea and Japan

[the eric conspiracy]

Ooops. Forgot the fact that the two most videogame obsessed countries don't have obesity problems.

Doh!

Re:Korea and Japan

[the eric conspiracy]

The point is that videogame use is not correlated to obesity. Duh.

Being a larger guy...

[Manip]

Being a larger guy myself I'd put it down to a number of factors including:
- Eating too fast
- Forgeting to enjoy food (fat people enjoy their food less than thin people while eating it)
- Very concentrated sugar / fat foods (e.g. Soft Drinks, Burgers)
- Society encourages us to stay home (Safer, Entertainment, and for Computer Geeks even work-useful activities like coding)
- Very little "good" help available (Doctors throwing pills, diets selling useless books, but nobody wants to give good advice except perhaps Paul Mckenna and a couple of others)

I wouldn't pin it down to Games or any other single form of entertainment. Well except perhaps World of Warcraft but that is a different kind of crack within its self. ;-)

Re:Being a larger guy...

[Reziac]

I always eat like a starving wolf (always have, ever since I was a little kid -- that's how I best enjoy my food!), and at 52 I'm still as skinny as I was in college. People are always asking me how I stay so thin. Well, this is it:

Lack of balanced protein and/or lack of fat makes you FEEL HUNGRY, and sugars early in the day make the liver "lazy" ("gimme easy food, not food I have to work to process!") and gives you the munchies. -- My diet is based around red meat (chicken, fish, and vegetable proteins do NOT have the right balance of amino acids to control your appetite), with normal amounts of fat (no particular effort made to trim it down). I don't eat carbs before noon, unless liberally lathered with grease. (Incidentally my cholesterol is way *down* there.) This serves to keep my appetite under control over the long haul, and prevents having the munchies during the day. -- I don't limit sweets otherwise, since I hit a natural limit of how much "tastes good" fairly quick. I suspect as a side effect, I do not get "sugar highs" even if I eat a lot of sugar at once.

Just because your stomach is empty does NOT necessarily mean you need to ingest more calories. Learn to feel when you need energy, don't just assume your stomach knows anything about it. -- My stomach does NOT control when I eat. It can growl all it likes, but if the rest of my body doesn't say it needs food TOO, the stomach will be ignored (or at best placated with a couple crackers or a piece of jerky); it has learned to produce a couple token growls, then shuts up and stops bothering me. If you don't give in every time you feel the slightest hunger, your stomach too can learn this self-control.

Don't stuff yourself. I feel no need to "clean my plate". That's what the fridge is for -- storing leftovers. One extra bite at every meal adds up. And if you eat out a lot, remember that both fast-food joints and 5-star restaurants have doggie-bags. Take it home, get another meal out of it, instead of shoveling down food you don't really want.

Listen to your body when it is "bored" and wants to move around, or needs to sleep. The "twitchies" you get after a marathon coding session are a major symptom of this physical boredom and sleep deprivation (the two tend to go hand in hand). -- Find something physical to DO for an hour or so every day, even if it's just walking around the block. And try to sleep at *night* (preferably by 10pm) -- that helps keep the rest of the system in sync, so your appetite is easier to control.

Take note of the metabolic slowdown that happens around age 30. If you keep eating as much as you did when you were 20, you WILL get fat.

If your lifestyle *becomes more sedentary* thanks to computer games or ANY "sit in one place" behaviour, you WILL get fat. I know a lot of formerly-active, formerly-thin people (mostly middle-aged guys) who got addicted to some computer game, or to the internet, or who got a desk job after being a field rep, and promptly put on weight, simply because now they sit there and snack instead of moving around, and they eat just because their body is bored. -- I can tell when a certain friend's computer is broken, because he loses weight. -- TV never had quite as much of an effect, probably because what interests most people is limited to certain hours and certain days, so sitting in front of the TV tends to be self-limiting. Conversely, you can play WoW 24 hours a day if you wish. -- I still play a lot of DOOM, and muck about online a lot, but I DON'T snack while I'm on the computer. And I do stuff besides just sit here all day.

So... that's it. Nothing special about my lifestyle, no particular diets, no deprivation, no exercise regimen (tho I do a couple hours of physical work every day, it's nothing strenuous, mainly just a lot of walking). Do likewise, and chances are you'll return to your teenage weight, too. It worked for generations of your forefathers, who never heard of all this low-fat, low-protein "healthy eating" that's been packing weight on Americans for the past two decades.

Who's To Blame?

[MrCrassic]

While McDonald's blames video games on the obesity trend, let's not forget the millions of Americans who work in physically inactive jobs for many hours per week, come home to eat a full dinner (while skimping on more important meals, like Breakfast) and then finish it off by watching a good amount of TV. Never mind the lack of (or committment to) exercise, eating healthier (which isn't as important as exercise) or even trying to be active.

When one sees public service announcements telling people to play at least ONE HOUR a day, then I think we know where a lot of the blame can be shifted. Ironically enough, in my mind it wouldn't be fast food...

There are many causes

[gilesjuk]

1. Fructose and corn syrup

2. Paranoid and over protective parents not letting their kids play outside

3. Lazy parents buying ready meals and junk food

4. Lack of room in the school timetable for PE (physical exercise)

5. Computer games (parents should limit this)

6. Film and TV programme tie-ins with McDonalds and sugary foods such as cereals

7. Kids being driven to school

Re:Not only that

[Drooling Iguana]

Actually, seeing as AIDS (or rather HIV) is a sexually transmitted disease I'd say videogames are doing a great deal to fight AIDS.

Slashdot, of course, does far more.

For the Win!

[trongey]

ScuttleMonkey wins the prize for Freudian Typo of the Day:

...Steve Eaterbrook, McDonald's UK CEO...

BOOKS!

[emeri1md]

It's the books! The books are making us fat. Damn those kids and their eight hour reading marathons! They need to go outside and get in trouble like normal kids! That'll get rid of the problem.

Video Games != Obesity

[Daveznet]

I don't know how he can say that video games leads to obesity. South Koreans probably play the most video games out of any nationality. A big portion of their economy is based on it. They have pro-gamers that practice 10+ hours a day and the last time I saw none of them were obese.

Keys lipid hypothesis is dead...

[waterford0069]

...long live the carbohydrates theory.

Keys lipid hypothesis is dead... scientist are fleeing it like rats from a sinking ship. The media just hasn't caught up yet.

The truly frightening thing is that the diet that US and Canadian governments have been recommending over that last 30 years is pretty much the same thing that we use to fatten cattle up for slaughter.

Re:Yes but...

[OldeTimeGeek]

Guilty of what? If McDonalds sold nothing but "healthy" foods starting tomorrow, they would be out of business within a couple of months - if that long. Restaurants that sell what people aren't interested in eating don't stay around long. If people were truly interested in eating better, restaurants would notice this and change their menus. Society as a whole will have to change first.

It's not just games, food, or even parenting

[Dirtside]

All of these things are contributing factors. But it's not just as simple as "kids eat too much junk food" or "kids don't get enough exercise", as if the solution is to simply STOP these things, like flipping a switch.

Let's look at one. Why do kids eat too much bad food? Because:
1. processed crap is cheaper per calorie (and gram) than healthier foods
2. freshly made food takes more time and energy to prepare than crappy food
3. people typically have a poor understanding of what exactly is in their food

Why are these things true? Partly because we didn't evolve to eat what we eat, and our bodies sometimes have trouble coping; partly because our diet isn't varied enough, and there's been a fair amount of research showing that more varied diets improve health; allergies/reactions to foods are higher in populations that eat a lot of those foods; and, among other things, decades of giant agribusinesses lobbying the government for laws and subsidies that support their business model of mass-producing cheap junk, and (sometimes) trying to suppress research that shows that cheap junk is unhealthy. Take "enriched flour". This is wheat flour that has had the husk removed (the husk contains almost all the fiber and other good nutrients; the germ contains basically nothing but carbohydrates), and then had artificially-produced versions of the nutrients in the husk added back in. What the hell? How about we just eat the whole grain instead (or flour therefrom) and cut out the middleman?

#3 really vexes me. My son has reactions to milk protein (irritability, rash around his butt), wheat (skin rash), canola (screaming hyperactivity), and artificial food coloring (more irritability and hypersensitivity to things going wrong); since my wife is still nursing him, she has to avoid those things too. And she's discovered that she reacts to milk protein (rashiness) and soy (body temperature drops by 1-2 degrees, cold sores develop on lip every couple of weeks, versus virtually never when she's off soy).

We still like to go out to eat, but it's a chore because we have to grill our waiters about what exactly they use to prepare the food. The question "What kind of cooking oil do you use to prepare X?" is usually met with either a blank stare (why should we expect someone who works in a restaurant to be informed about what's in the food? madness!), or the answer "Vegetable oil." Uh, yeah, pretty much ALL cooking oil is vegetable oil (animal fats are solid at room temperature, and are not "oil", culinarily speaking). WHICH VEGETABLE DID IT COME FROM? It matters! We eventually started saying "What kind of vegetable oil do you use," which frequently gets the answer "Regular vegetable oil", which lead to much headdesking frustration. Now we actually cue them by saying, "What kind of vegetable oil do you use, like, canola, corn, safflower, olive oil?" and most of the time that seems to get them to provide us with an actual answer (but sometimes they still say "regular").

Hell, one time we went to a very nice restaurant, and my wife expained that she couldn't have dairy or wheat. The waiter dutifully returned later and told us that he'd checked on the desserts and found one that wasn't made with dairy or wheat flour, "just white flour." We stared at him for a second and asked what plant white flour comes from. It was priceless watching the expression on his face as it dawned on him that white flour is also made from wheat. And this guy was a waiter at a well-known upscale restaurant in Los Angeles. And we've had this experience repeated numerous times, at restaurants all along the scale.

Anyway, rant over, but if you don't already, do yourself a favor -- find out what the hell you're eating. Learn about food. Read ingredient labels. (Did you know that "rapeseed" is another name for "canola"? Did you know that "casein" is milk protein? Did you know that virtually all soy sauce contains wheat, which is a pain in the ass for us because we love sushi?) Avoid proc

Re:It's not just games, food, or even parenting

[Punko]

Number 1 son has no allergies. Likewise my wife and I. Number 2 son is anaphalactic to penicillin. He also is allergic to beef (not dairy, though) and egg whites. The downside is now that he has had 2 anaphalactic reactions that required hospitalization (and epipens) that we have no idea what caused. We now read every label, home cook from scratch every night, and do not eat in restaurants. If it wasn't for lunch, I would never have a restaurant meal again. We are restricted in sauces, need to contact manufactuers to grill them (pun intended) about not only the unlisted contents of their foods, but also the nature of their production facilities. Many food companies are excellent and knowledgable, but many insist that the label tells all. We've learned to bake almost anything without eggs, learned how to cook with everthing fresh, and learned how little we can trust pre-made or pre-cooked foods.

On the upside, I'm sure its doing me a lot of good, although my caloric intake is too high, and my amount of excercise is too low. Home-made bread is just too good!

Calories in video games?

[HalAtWork]

I wonder how many calories video games have? Oh right, it's the McDonald's that people while playing the video games. Personally I play a lot of video games, watch a lot of TV, and go to work. I don't go out of my way to do physical activity but I don't inhibit it either, I just do what feels natural. I eat well though. Ever since I cut out McDonald's and drinking soda, I dropped 65 lbs over like 4 months. Now I'm not overweight in the least, and even then I wasn't really fat before, but bending over made me sweat, and I didn't like that. I still eat about a bag of cookies a day (a habit which I am cutting out now, I just can't quit all my bad habits all at once you know) and it's nowhere near as aweful as McDonald's, and I don't feel like vomiting after I eat either.

Re:The real problem

[TomorrowPlusX]

It's a health problem. Seriously.

Now, people who think fat people are *bad* or *amoral*, those people are assholes. But the fact remains that being fat will kill you early, and will impact the quality of your life for a long time before you die.

I'm not judging you or other fat people. I'm just speaking the truth. It's bad for you. I used to be fat, and thanks to the laws of thermodynamics I'm not any more. I can ride my bike 50 miles and feel great the rest of the day. I can run, do pushups, etc. I couldn't do that way back when I was in high school spending my time in a basement playing Wolfenstein and watching horror movies, all the while stuffing my face and lamenting my lack of a girlfriend.

I hate to be the one to break it to you

[spun]

I read your entire post and it's well thought out and interesting.

But, I have to admit, I sort of wanted some cake to go with it. The cake is a lie.

Actually, it's often the opposite.

[WebCowboy]

does fast food cause violence?

Though sugar- and caffeine-laden drinks can perhaps wind a person up, most of a typical fast-food menu would probably leave you feeling lethargic and feeling a bit calmer, due to the high-fat content and other chemicals such as the enzymes in the cheese on your burger. That's what's a bit perverse about a lot of restaurant meals--not only will they make you feel fat, they'll put you in a lazy mood so you are less motivated to be active. When those effects wear off you'll feel tired and grumpy, then you'll want to eat more bad food to get that mild euphoria again.

Anyways, this McDonalds bigwig is actually talking out of hid butt. Video games don't make people fat--the lack of physical activity is what partly contributes to weight gain. Some video games are GOOD for your health...how many morbidly obese people have YOU seen playing the advanced levels on DDR for example? And many Nintendo Wii titles certainly encourage people to get up and move. In any case, sedentary video-game playing is only partly the cause of weight gain. The other much bigger contributer to weight gain is excessive caloric intake. Kids who don't snack and skip meals because they are compulsively playing video games are SKINNY kids (still unhealthy, but skinny). Kids who snack on junk food and eat Big Macs between levels are FAT kids.

Research has now widely shown that thoguh exercise is essential to good health, by far the largest single contributer to obesity is DIET. It only takes moments longer to eat a supersized value meal than it does to eat a regular value meal, but it takes a half-hour of moderate activity to burn off the extra calories...worse yet, you can eat a fast food meal faster than you can eat a home-cooked meal, but it would take an extra hour of moderate activity to burn off the calories. As far as fixing obesity goes, priority one should be fixing people's over-processed, carb-loaded, calorie-dense diet.

That said, though, McDonald's is not the most evil of offenders in providing us with easy access to a nasty diet and it really does get far more flak than it deserves (perhaps because it is a big corporation that markets toward children which amplifies the focus on McDo). The baddest, most evil food-mongers are most of the "casual dining" restaurant franchises, primarily because of their insanely huge portions (especially in the United States). Appetiser platters at these eateries are actually large enough for 2 to 4 complete meals. "Meal sized" salads can approach 1500 Calories. Surveys have been done that show that "healthy choice" or "lighter fare" meals even have excessive portions...too much of even a good thing will make you fat.

The Science of Obesity

[cbarcus]

Just a short time ago, Slashdot ran an article that talked about Gary Taubes latest book Good Calories Bad Calories: Challenging the Convention Wisdom on Diet, Weight Control, and Disease. How many Slashdot'ers actually examined what this article was all about? It appears that many posters have not given this topic the consideration it needs.

In short, Taubes argues very thoroughly and persuasively that there is much known about the cause of fat accumulation, and it goes very much against what the medical establishment claims. Anyone who has not closely looked at this matter is very likely in the dark about what is going on in our bodies, regardless of what they've heard or believe. Carbohydrates, specifically refined carbohydrates like white flour and sugar are the main culprits. Obesity is a disease that occurs because of poor nutrition, not because of poor willpower, gluttony, and sloth.

Here are the relevant links:

New York Times Magazine article from 2002: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F04E2D61F3EF934A35754C0A9649C8B63
MIT interview about the above article: http://web.mit.edu/knight-science/fellows/interviews/taubes.html
Taubes' recent article about the role of exercise: http://nymag.com/news/sports/38001/


Happy reading! And good luck staying healthy!

Tell Ronald to stay the frack away from my kids

[jeko]

I'll make you a deal.

Tell Ronald to pull his creepy pedophile advertising from all the children's shows. Tell him to quit bribing my school board for access to the classroom for his "special presentations." Tell him to keep his Richard-Simmons fat ass away from whispering in my children's ears 24/7 "McDonald's is cool and magical and if your Mommy and Daddy will take you there Grimace has a special present for you."

Pull his multi-billion dollar marketing machine away from my children's playground. Stop cramming preternatural amounts of fat, sugar and salt into their food so that my children's hindbrains don't scream "My God, we found the mother lode, we'll never need to eat again!" at the first whiff. Tell Ronald to quit fucking around with the peace in my home, and I'll lay off trying to shove him in jail with all the other fat, middle-aged men who wanna wear makeup and play with little kids.

Yes, I keep my kids away from that crap, but I'm sick of Ronald spending billions of dollars worming his way into my kids' dreams telling them that Mommy and Daddy are keeping them from something special.

Parental Responsibility?! How would you react if I followed your kid around all day telling them "I'll take you to McMagicFairyLand if your Mommy and Daddy will let me..."

Gym class. . ?

[Fantastic Lad]

When I was a kid, video games were in their toddlership; the Apple ][ and the C64 were big when I was 'Stand By Me' age. --And I played a LOT of them. And I read tons of books. And watched too much TV, and was engaged in a bunch of other quiet desk-y activities which included things like dice and soldering irons. But I also liked to climb trees and ride my bike all over creation, and play the odd sports and even cross a suicidal train bridge with by friends now and again. --And in gym class, we had to run around the school yard perimeter three times every school day. That's about a mile! Every day. Running. What the heck? We were all in pretty great shape!

Life hasn't changed that much for kids except that the TV and video game quotient has crept up, (but not by so much), and McFries along with much of our food supply now uses GM vegetable oil. (McFries used to be cooked with animal fat back in the good old days when the oils wouldn't break down under heating into toxins; but that's another story. . ).

And yet there has been a distinct change, and I don't think it is linked to any one thing; not to video games or TV or our diets. I think it's a collective build-up of unhealthy and limiting forces, no one of which is going to tip the scales on its own. But it's there. People today are in general, less interesting. I'm sorry, you youngsters our there, but it's true. There's a curve of sorts going on. Want to test it? Do the following. . .

Sit down with a sampling of regular burger-eating, TV-watching twenty-year-olds, (I should note that this does not apply to people who have disengaged from all the normal culprit lifestyles), and ask about their lives and their childhoods. Listen to their stories. Then do the same thing with a bunch of people in their late thirties and early forties. Move through the decades. --You'll begin to really notice the trend with people who were born in the fifties and sixties.

I did that for a while without particularly planning to measure anything; I was just in a phase where I was meeting lots of people, and was stunned by just how much more alive people seemed who had been born in the earlier decades. --I knew this one girl who must be in her late forties by now, who when she was a kid burned down a garage in the middle of one of her adventures. She and her gang also used to hike through the city ravine system which back then could take you from one end of the city to the other without needing to abandon the tree line, and they knew when all their various abusive parents would be away so that they could raid their separate kitchens en masse for lunch without being spotted. They'd take in fifty-cent films down at the Kingsway with the gang sitting along the entire front row passing roaches made from wild marijuana they'd picked in the forest and rolled into joints the size of 12 gage cigars. --One time they went to their favorite baseball field only to find that the Toronto chapter of the Hell's Angels had settled in for the day. --So they challenged them to a baseball game, and everybody ended up having one of the most exciting days of their lives.

Shit. I was born in the early Seventies, and my stories weren't nearly so bloody or amazing. --I did a few cool things; I burned down a fence one time trying to reverse-engineer fireworks, and I stole a shipment of wonderbread from a grocery store with my friends one night on a whim.

But I know a guy who was born in the fifties who has stories like Indiana Jones. And a thirteen year-old today whose big adventure was that she lost her cell phone and had to go looking for it in the woods.

--Now, I know this is not the norm. There are placid people in all times. --And adventurous ones, too. But it's the style and depth of adventure which I notice seems to have diminished over the decades. George Lucas used to be into street racing and hot rods; American Graffiti was drawn from his own teen years. Most of the young wannabe directors I meet today just watch movies. And