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UK Government Ads Link Games With "Early Death"
An anonymous reader writes "The UK government, backed by a bunch of charities that raise funds for research into cancer, heart disease and diabetes, has launched an advertising campaign that links the 'inactive' or passive gaming lifestyle with death and illness. It's part of a bigger 'Change4Life' campaign that has also linked playing games with making children obese. The new ads show a young child playing a PlayStation game, with the caption 'Risk an early DEATH, just do nothing.' To say this has annoyed the UK games industry would be a grave understatement. Trade association ELSPA has already called an urgent meeting with authorities to have the ads pulled, and trade magazine MCV has complained to the country's Advertising Standards Authority as well. As MCV Associate Editor Tim Ingham says in an impassioned opinion piece, 'Change4Life's advertising campaign makes a mockery of everything the industry has achieved in the last decade.'"
A sedentary lifestyle can be linked to obesity, which in turn *can* be linked to death and illness. The summary is a little too... angry....
Still, it's partially correct. Instead of arguing that "GAMES ARE BAD AAAWR", the advert could have simply advocated a balanced lifestyle. There's nothing inherently bad about gaming, so long as you remember to exercise. Indeed, some games and game systems (Wii?) can even *encourage* exercise.
Last I checked, video games weren't exactly a great way to exercise (no, not even Wii Fit... I own it, I know), and inadequate exercise is still considered to be a risk factor for obesity, which is in turn a a major risk factor in a huge number of potentially deadly conditions and preconditions. I love videogames, and I'm not about to cut back my playing in order to exercise more, but I simply can't in good conscience argue that it wouldn't be a good idea (and I'm not even at risk for obesity... my BMI is actually below the average range). I would even say that it is absolutely valid for a public health agency to advocate substituting physical activities for video games, board games, reading, and other non-physical activites for purely health related reasons.
I'm not sure what the game publishers are actually protesting here, because this sounds like a pretty clear cut issue to me.
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
They're making a bold statement here:
"Playing Videogames produces sedentarism which in turn produces illness"
It's not the videogames that make a people sedentary. It's the other way around: sedentary people like to play videogames.
If videogames didn't exist, those people would just watch tv and still wither and die.
So they're condemning kids sitting around indoors playing video games all the time instead of going outside, running around, and being kids. Fine, I can deal with that. What I can't deal with, is that the UK government has become such a nanny-state that they keep preventing and even outlawing all sorts of activities "because someone might get hurt". So I ask you all: What the fuck are the kids supposed to do??!?
MEMO TO UK GOVERNMENT: Make up your damned minds, do you want kids to go out and play or DON'T YOU??!?
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
These "causationisnotcorrelation" tags are flat-out the dumbest part of Slashdot these days.
Take this particular news story: There are no specific claims of any sort that I can see in any of the article links on either side. There aren't any specific correlations being asserted or presented between anything and anything else that I can tell, just a bunch of bitching on both sides. The "correlationisnotcausation" whine-fest is completely beside the point, like a mass hallucination.
For future reference, first you must have (a) Specific characteristics being discussed. Then (b) Claims of correlations between them. Then (c) Specifically referenced research that backs up those correlation claims. Only then is it any use to start arguing about "correlationisnotcausation" (and usually not even then).
The "correlationisnotcausation" tagging is just plain vandalism. I don't think the taggers involved even read the summaries anymore, they just tag everything in sight "correlationisnotcausation", like they're autistic graffiti artists.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
Indeed, singling out games like the ad does only risks getting the wrong message across ("games are bad" instead of "a sedentary lifestyle is bad"). They should balance it out by making an ad showing a girl reading a book under the same "Risk an early DEATH, just do nothing" caption.
It's easier for the Government to crack down on Games than it is to face up to the Tobacco Lobby: Consider when Tony Blair was UK PM he was caught with a donation from Formula One motor Racing boss Bernie Ecklestone, generously given after Blair changed his mind and decided to allow tobacco sponsorship of the Formula One Grand Prix after all.
Tobacco is the #1 cause of preventable death in Europe. The World Health Organisation said there have been 40 million tobacco-related deaths since 1999. So how does the British Government Respond? ATTACK GAMES! At least they're consistent with that brilliant Iraq/Afganistan Strategy...
http://www.ashaust.org.au/mediareleases/081104.htm
Diet is a much more reliable indicator of obesity. Yes, going outside and climbing trees or whatever it is that kids do these days will help burn fat, but burning fat away is notoriously slow compared to gaining weight, and unreliable at that because exercise tends to increase the munch instinct. And statistically, according to an employee my insurance agency, the years you'll live longer will be outweighed by the amount of exercise you do. At a factor of three or so. So you'll have to make sure that whatever exercise it is you're doing is a lot of fun. And too much exercise has been linked with neurological and joint issues. So if you don't like exercising, don't do it, íf your diet is varied and healthy you'll burn up any excess energy just running about the house, cycling to school, the supermarket, friends and such. Maybe you won't maximize your lifespan, but I think you will come a lot closer to maximising total happiness which at least to me is a much more pressing concern. And if you're really worried about your kids not getting enough exercise, maybe they'll like DDR or Wii Fit. Or you could, you know, take them to the woods on a Saturday and have some family time together. Just a thought.
Sorry about this but I'm going to be blunt: you're likely fooling yourself.
Genetics may well be a factor and probably is, but as far as I can tell it's not the overriding one. I'm speaking from personal experience here - last summer I reached 16st 1 (225lbs) and decided Something Must Be Done(tm). I also put on weight pretty easily, so my I decided my metabolism wasn't going to help me out here and resigned myself to be fat for all time. Still, I didn't need to be quite that fat so decided to try losing a few lbs.
I started small - a half-hour on Wii Fit jogging every night, plus a change of diet. After a while a friend asked if I wanted to try for a 10km run, so I started training to do that with him. One night's real running, one night's Wii-Fit running - on and off. I also started using the stairs at work - all 17 floors of them, two flights between each floor, average of around 11 steps per flight. Pretty soon weight was coming off quite fast, and the thing is - the more came off, the better my metabolism become at shedding more of it. I was really proud the day I ran 10km for the first time: in a time I'd now consider disastrously slow. My time then was 1hr 15min - by co-incidence I've just come in from my morning 10km run and did 42mins, still not lightening but not terrible either. That's a short run today too since I'm busy, I normally I'd do a half-marathon every Sunday morning and I'm booked in for my first marathon at the end of May.
I realise that sounds boastful but this is Slashdot - I fully expect that in the thousands out there reading, somebody somewhere can utterly trounce every achievement I've just mentioned and looks at that level of activity as being weak. No, the reason I'm saying my activity levels these days is to contrast with what was happening when I just came home and sat at the computer, or the console, and barely moved all the while eating take-outs or relatively poor quality food. By Christmas I'd got down to 11t 9 (155 lbs). I've kept at that weight since - never lower, but never much higher either. The key here is that as I got more fit, what I'd put down to genetics about me losing weight turned out actually to be just a side effect of the fact I was already overweight. The fitter I became, the better my ability to stay that way.
It's something I'd seriously recommend to people - it's not just the weight loss though that's very welcome of course, it has an effect on everything. I'm happier, my mind is sharper, I don't feel so tired all the time, I now find I prefer healthier food to the junk so choosing the healthy option isn't a chore...just a better life all round. I'm no monk either - I cut down on drinking, but I still go out and have a few pints or Black Russians (or both, on a particularly good night...) and yes, the odd pizza is still known to be consumed. The difference is that I know how much work, in a literal physical measurement sense of burning energy, I'm going to have to do to get rid of it so I never allow nights like that to just pile up an up which is what I used to do.
To bring this all back into context with the parent post and the article: the parent's comment on genetics is likely to be misleading because your ability to metabolise improves the fitter you become. The article is going off on a rant about for once a perfectly reasonable statement from the UK government (and I'm British): a sedantery lifestyle for kids or indeed anyone else is going to be less healthy than an active one, and gaming is associated with a sedantery lifestyle. Yes, even Wii Sports and Wii Fit - I startd out with these and they helped a lot, but they're not a substitute for the real thing. I have three kids and I make absolutely sure they do a lot of running around and playing outside, bu I also encourage them to use the Wii and their DS's too. If I deprived them of some modern entertainment like gaming then I'd be being unreasonable, but if I allowed them to settle into doing nothing but then I'd also be being a bad parent - it's that circumstance that the government is pointing out.
Cheers,
Ian
Yes, a sedentary lifestyle can damage your health. The government are quick to point this out when you sit down to play a computer game but they don't seem to give a crap that you've got to sit down in front of a PC for 8 or 9 hours a day just to make ends meet.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
Well, the British fail, once again. For one, a recent study of gamers shows they were actually in better shape, on average, than their peers. This is a trend not limited to gaming in England. From warrant-less searches, to using closed circuit cameras to watch your every move, the government is following the words of Orwell in becoming a true Big Brother. V for Vendetta doesn't seem too far-fetched, does it?