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.'"

Comments

Re:So did I miss something?

[MichaelSmith]

obesity, which is in turn a a major risk factor in a huge number of potentially deadly conditions and preconditions.

Its not a risk for me. Its a certainty. When I was seven years old my grandfather died at the age of 58 from a heart attack. My dad told me at the time what did it and how he planned to avoid it. When I dad was 63 he had a heart attack, and survived because his partner was on the ball and got him to hospital. So knowing what was on the way gained him five years. So here I am, aged 43. I'm not going to let this happen. Am I? Realistically I might be able to delay it another five years.

Re:So did I miss something?

[glitch23]

I'm not sure what the game publishers are actually protesting here, because this sounds like a pretty clear cut issue to me.

I believe the problem is that the ad tries to make a direct causal relationship between playing video games and death. And as one of the tags states, correlation is not equal to causation.

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.

The problem is that they didn't do this. They just jump straight to the scare tactic of saying you will die if you play video games.

Re:Diet is much more important

[EsbenMoseHansen]

Diet can make you thin. Exercise can make you fit. It is quite possible to be thin and unhealthily out of shape -- especially older girls/young women are prone to this condition. That said, you don't need that *much* exercise to get to the point where it isn't killing you anymore... if you can take a flight of stairs at a run without wheezing too much at the top, you're probably ok. As for weight, BMI is very easy if somewhat inaccurate.