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Study Shows TV Makes Kids Fat, Computers Don't
Xemu writes "Computers don't make children fat, but watching TV for the same length of time does. This is shown by a recent Swedish study of all school children in Lund's county conducted by RN Pernilla Garmy. The results were clear: The child's obesity was directly affected by placing a TV in the child's room, but placing a computer in the room had no effect at all. One theory is that it's common to have a snack in front of the TV, while a computer requires a more active user, for example when chatting or playing games."
Computers are awesome.
The article is likely correct about the snacks and food. Also, no offense intended to anyone, but I've noticed that people who just zone out to television as compared to active computer users/gamers tend to be a bit...dumber.
Yes yes, I know, a generalization...but in my experience, it's the truth.
Living With a Nerd
Abuse of apostrophe's make baby Je'su's cry.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Yeah, because sitting there and typing or moving the mouse is huge amounts of activity! I can eat a bag of M&Ms and drink coke while coding, and I'm sure there are plenty who can scoff pizza, coke and crisps without a problem!
You've got to lick your fingers well to make sure that you don't leave a mess on your keyboard, but other than that the computer "activity" isn't that much of an obstacle for eating.
"Gaming your way to weightloss!"
It works, I swear! I remember one particular weekend where I lost 5lbs working through raid encounters in Everquest 1. Who needs food when lewt is raining from the sky!
Repeating as needed, may reduce weight as part of a calorie controlled diet.
While shoving a mouse around and typing does not seem like significant exercise, I think there's a bigger energy expenditure in interactive thought. Zoning out at the television does not engage many areas of the brain, but chatting with friends or deciding where to browse next takes a bit more power. Brain activity burns calories. I've personally noticed that my head warms up more when I'm thinking, especially if the work or play is cerebral or there's a time pressure involved. It would be very cool to see a study on just how different these tasks are, with brain activity monitored objectively.
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All the free porn is on the internet, that is a calorie burn when done properly.
I found that I get caught up in the computer and what I'm working on and forget to stop and eat. When I get really focused on my work I'll forget to stop and eat and when I'm playing a new game I may only eat once a day for the first weekend.
I'll take a computer over a tv any day of the week.
As far as why they don't make you fat compared to watching tv, well the answer is obvious - pr0n and its associated activity burns calories...
... but in my case, beer makes me fatter and fatter... :(
I can't play any games without my beer!
So all thoses kids won't become fat until they turn 18 / 21...
I can't call that English
...tv tuners on pcs? What happens then? Who funds those studies,geeez!
There's no patch for stupidity
If you have no where to sit while you watch tv its pretty hard to eat. If you use the computer while you watch tv it is pretty hard to eat. And if you goto the gym and run on a treadmill while you watch tv... I hope whoever commissioned this study paid with our tax money.
How many ads for fast food, soft drinks, candy bar, restaurants, etc. do you see during an hour of watching TV versus during an hour of using the computer? Food cues might play a strong role, too.
The real news is that this is not because of lack of exercise, but because of lack of food.
Repeat it as needed.
Don't worry, this is Slashdot. We got that covered.
I am not a crackpot.
Previous studies showed that the TV made no difference at all. Kids who weren't active in the house, where no more active when they went outside.
The studies I have read based on TV obesity all showed that TV was not the cause, but just something people who were inactive happened to do.
Why the child was inactive turns out to be a number of other reasons. depression, stress, bad house hold habits. and so on.
What TV does seem to do is make people think they need to eat, vie food commercials.
Sadly, there are surprisingly few good* studies that try to tease apart the variables in TV watching. I would like to read the detail in this study.
How were the children selected? What where there daily activities before the study? Was the study done at a time of year that coincide with better weather? How where controls done? was diet monitored?
The reason given seems a little thin, since eating at the computer is as easy as the TV. OF course, there could be a cultural reason for not eating while on the computer.
Quite frankly, I would be for the removing of food commercials. It would never happen, but I would wager that after a year the obesity problem would start to slow down, if not stop.
*lots of bad studies.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I assume you are referring to the title, but it is pretty clear from tfa and even the writeup that the implication is NOT that TV itself causes fatness. The writeup even proposes that snacking more in front of the TV is possibly the cause.
Yes, but it is not NOT correlation either.
I couldn't find a link to any study. So I'll just let this pass as another poor 'study' about TV done by someone who doesn't understand what's needed to do a good study.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
directly affected by placing a TV in the child's room
Immediate mental image: the child's weight changing instantly as the TV comes and goes.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
What would be interesting is whether it's the programmes or the advertisements that make people (and I doubt that it's limited to just children) fill up on garbage.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
The fact that celery is a calorie negative food still doesn't make up for the fact that nutella is fat and sugar with chocolate and hazelnut flavor.
I dunno if it's worse than peanut butter, but healthy it isn't.
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
Typing keeps your hands busy.
Agreed. It's not the tv making them fat. It's the fat that makes them fat.
Sent from your iPad.
instead of the google translation of a 2 paragraphs-long article ?
An interesting way to validate this study would be a lab controlled experiment where people are connected to a calorie consumption monitor while either watching tv (track "entertainment" vs "educational" programming), using a computer (track "working - coding, writing docs, etc." vs "gaming" vs "reading"), or reading (track "news paper" vs "fictional novel").
Brains use a fair bit of calories thinking and processing information. Should be easy enough to prove (or disprove) that watching TV requires fewer calories.
What you eat while performing these activities probably has a greater impact on your weight - which is what the article is probably referring to. I'd read it, but I'm trying to lose weight and think that posting consumes more calories then reading :-)
I'm in my right mind and I have the answer to everything!
When I'm bored, I am more likely to eat. When I'm wasting enemies in Team Fortress 2 (ok, being wasted, but hey), the last thing I'm going to do is get up and get a snack.
... can make you fat if you do too much of it, moderation and monitoring of what you eat vs the energy you expend is what counts.
You can lose weight in marathon gaming sessions, I know I've lost a few pounds over weekends with huge long games of Civ4 or Galciv 2.
You watch television to turn your brain off
and you work on your computer
when you want to turn your brain on.
(Steve Jobs, Macworld, Feb 2004)
Snacking works better when you are 10 feet from a TV with your hands empty then when you are over your keyboard mousing and typing.
You got me into this! You were the ideologue! I'm only a poor assassin! - Twenty evocations, Bruce Sterling
I wrap the mouse and keyboard in Saran wrap during use and toss them in the dishwasher every now and then...
You are busy fragging with both hands ?
The TV fosters passivity. Cattle mentality.
The Internet is more for active people. Not necessarily with the body (apart from porn), but with the brain. It supports active participation. Look at how it already changed government and the media. People stop being cattle because of it.
Also, if you have ever played Q3 CPMA or Richard Burns Rally (on a force feedback wheel) for a couple of hours, you’ll know that you get hot and sweat like a pig from the stress. (The heat is proof for the burning of energy.)
Also a very important thing to note is, that not being fat does not mean being healthy. It can mean you are simply so thing because you’re too lazy to even eat. It’s obvious that that will kill you in the long run, or case bad long-term diseases. Just like bad food. The lack of sports is still much bigger than with e.g. an outdoor sport.
But hey, I’m working on affordable outdoor computer games that require movement right now! Wish me luck! :)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
On a computer the hands are kept busy, typing mashing buttons whatever, watching TV hands are idle, perhaps flipping channels on a remote. Seems there may be a direct link between keeping ones hands occupied by typing/button mashing vs. idle where it's easier to stuff ones face due to having nothing to do.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
Since when did anything require credibility to get on the front page of Slashdot?
I watch TV on the computer.
I care not for your karma and your mod points.
computer = active mind
television = vegetative state
Article on TV making kids fat. Check. See you in six months.
OK, what's next... cell phone cancer? No, too soon. Video game violence? Not quite yet.
How about one where creationism believing fat kids using cell phones under power lines can get cancer unless they use Linux and stop global warming using stimulus money for stem cell research?
Ooo! How about a good "Amerkinz am teh stoopids" study based on a phone survey?
So when I'm gaming, and up against a big boss, my heart rate goes through the roof. I may be stationary, but my heart's pounding like I'm in a fight, I'm sweating, and my body's in fight mode. In my opinion and experience, I'm burning more calories (relatively speaking) gaming than I am just sitting and watching TV.
Here's to hot beer, cold women, and Glaswegian kisses for all.
...is not causation.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Hell, I almost starved to death when I got Diablo II.
While coding, or typing , or chatting MOST of the time your finger are occupied and your brain is in active mode. While watching TV, usually the finger are doing NOTHING and the brain is IMHO in a more "sleepy" mode. The fact that the finger do nothing, for some people finger have always to be doing something, and so the grasping of the snake will be happening much more often than while you type.
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it depends on how many times you lift them.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
There is some scientific disagreement over the nature of fat accumulation (consider Gary Taubes landmark book Good Calories, Bad Calories), and I would think that this plays an important role in how the culture views the qualities of various foods. Furthermore, as has been mentioned in other posts, TV ads are designed to affect those who watch them. It is non-trivial to resist the sophisticated suggestions (see Boris Sidis' The Psychology of Suggestion 1898) that vulnerable people encounter in broadcast media.
Taking the reckless assertion of causality train one step further, since we know that obesity is directly controlled by carbohydrate intake, we can now make the statement that TV obviously causes children to eat carbohydrates, and computers don't.
For those unfamiliar with the Kreb's Cycle, and the direct causation of obesity by carbohydrate intake, it works like this:
-only one hormone causes fat cells to accumulate fat, rather than to process fatty acids normally both from and to the bloodstream - insulin
-only one thing causes an increase of insulin levels - blood sugar
-only one thing causes an increase of blood sugar - carbohydrate intake
Usually, your fat cells process fatty acids, taking them in and then pushing them back out into the bloodstream. Under the condition of insulin resistance, the fat cells behave in an abnormal manner, and steal energy from the bloodstream, but don't release it back in. This causes the starvation of other cells. So when you see a 400 pound fat man eating a pizza like he's starving, it's because his muscle cells are being starved by his out of control fat cells.
It seems most people who are serious about PC gaming are average weight to slender. I've seen this on mosaics of pictures people posted on gaming forums, also pictures of game mappers, and also at places like QuakeCon (where Quake 3 tends to be the core game featured every year) year after year. Of course these people tend to have some competitive spirit so that might have something to do with it. Even the people I know who play WoW, most are average weight. There is the occasional fatty here and there, but in my experience PC gamers tend to be slimmer than average.
moox. for a new generation.
Too late. Oh, by the way, when you rolled over last night, you crushed a small country.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Watch people sitting in front of a TV. They are unnaturally still, almost paralyzed by the constant shifting images. Watch someone just sitting there, or using a computer. They will almost always be moving a little bit, shifting position, fidgeting, attention jumping from one thing to another.
Play Command HQ online
Consuming more calories than you burn or apply to normal growth makes you fat!
100 kids surveyed:
How many kids have consumed a computer: 0
How many kids have consumed a television: 0
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
It would also be interesting to see if there are any relationships between hours spent watching TV, hours spent using a computer, intelligence, and school performance. Kids can be messy with snacks and drinks, especially when preoccupied by watching TV or using a computer. Hardwood or laminate flooring can be an easy solution to kid-proof a home. True Hardwoods
but what about watching TV on the computer?
I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.
Interesting. I recently realized that I have come to consider video games (Wii) a healthy alternative to tv for my two boys (5 and 7.) Last Saturday I told them to turn the tv off and find something to do, and the 5 year old asked if he could play Wii. I said sure. And it's not because of the physical activity with Wii either...it's more the matter of participating in what's on the screen. There's probably a generational shift in progress.
Evil is the money of root.
I started to worry when I opened up a story about a scientific finding and didn't find a correlation is not causation post. Now that I've found yours, though, I can rest more easily...
Is 1563649 a prime number?
but the _commercials_
When paying/working/whatever on a computer you're generally focussed and have a general control over what you see/do.
On TV, especially kids TV, any program you're watching is frequently interrupted by images and messages about junk food, snacks, sodas, sugar-laden juice drinks, etc.
I contend that it is this (subliminal" maybe) messaging that's leading to obesity as much, if nor more so, than just the sedentary nature of watching TV.
Change the computer so that every for 2 out of every 8 minutes of usage your computer screen is replaced with images of BigMacs, Whoppers, Coke, Skittles, etc., etc. and I BET that all those non-fat computer kids will get fat pretty quickly.
Damn, did I just give the junk food industry a new target to aim for?
-- Always borrow money from a pessimist; they don't expect to be paid back.
Or your other population "TV Watchers" are more likely to be poor minorities which happen to be more likely to be obese. Had you properly controlled for demographics you may find that your data does support the "Computers cause fat" hypothesis.
I remember hearing about an experiment, using measurements of oxygen consumption, that showed that a human sitting in a chair watching TV burned less calories than a human sitting in a chair doing nothing! Does anybody remember this and can find any references? I think the experiment was quite old so there was no test of using a computer, but it may be related to this.
"Computer's" don't make children fat, but they do make them illiterate (as proven by the summary).
Free Martian Whores!
I actually welcome a little 'brain dead' time in front of a TV (ok, it is run from a computer with MythTV on it) for some mindless relaxation.
Heck, on weekends, I like to actually actively KILL some brain cells with some alcohol....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
1. How do the results change if the TV has a video game console attached?
1a. What if it's a PS3/XBox vs. a Wii (implying that a Wii takes more physical activity)
2. How do these results compare to a child who has neither a TV nor a computer in his bedroom?
While watching TV, I can cram food down my throat with both hands. I might have to put one of my snacks down to FF past a commercial.
On the computer, I have at least one hand on the mouse. If I'm watch pr0n, my other hand might also be occupied.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Or, perhaps it could be that families who typically have enough money for computers for their children also have enough money/time to buy and prepare healthy meals?
With about the same involvement level as television, reading also lends itself to mindless snacking. With fewer Pizza Hut commercials.
Not really sure what the point of this study is - should we take away our kids' TVs and replace them with the internet and video games? Obesity is a problem but then again so is attention span.
Did they just correlate #of kids with TV vs. kids with PC? If so then surprise: correlation does not imply causation.
Either that or they could go around installing TVs and PCs and removing whatever kids had in their rooms before test, which I don't think the parents would let them do.
I take it they didn't include a television with a portable video camera in their tests?
In fact, I'd expect they'd lose more weight having a TV and video camera than they would having a computer with a webcam. A video camera would encourage more recording outdoors; a webcam would only encourage sex-skyping.
If it's a computer with a portable video camera, they're more likely to do editing.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Fat kids can't crawl up onto a chair to surf the net, but they can use a remote.
to be fair: correlation is not causation.
when we say that for every correlation we don't like, we have to say it for correlations we like...
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
Clearly the people in this study never went to a LAN party.
I used to eat a whole large meat-lovers pizza and 6 cans or so of Coke (the good Australian stuff with REAL sugar) during the course of an afternoon/evening's gaming/file swapping/etc
I dont think this, computer can do a better brain, but always i dont exercise my body.
I work hours behind the computer and i need very much fresh air...
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Please stop stalking me, bro.
Yeah well, at least downloading porn involves a little bit of exercise. With TV you just lay there.
Agreed. It's not the tv making them fat. It's the fat that makes them fat.
Or the fat making them watch TV.
Remember how hungry you were after writing a two hour exam at school? The working brain is an energy drain. It's a fat burner. Watching a movie pulls the brain with it, you use as much energy as you would sitting on a park bench watching traffic. Power to the Puter!