Official News page 6

REAL LIFE NEWS: VIDEO GAMES MAKE YOU FAT

by Hazed

A new report claims that playing video games makes boys eat more.

A Canadian study watched 22 teenagers who were of normal weight and found that they ate a bigger lunch after playing a video game than when they spent an hour relaxing. They consumed 63 more calories, and did not make up for this by burning more calories during their game time, or eating less later in the day.

The boys were asked to rate how hungry they felt, and their appetite hormones were also measured, and these did not seem to differ. So the effect is not physical, but something about playing the games changes the eating habits. It is possible that the mental stress of using a computer tricks the brain into thinking you have worked hard so need calories to stock up.

This was a very small study, but if the results can be duplicated in larger trials it could be significant.

Having said that, bear in mind that the news report I read was from Britain's Daily Mail, well known for exaggerated health scares! This is the paper that has classified every single item in the known universe as either causing cancer or curing it. See http://kill-or-cure.heroku.com/.

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1383655/Teenage-boys-eat-food-playing-video-games-study-says.html#

Fed2 Star index Previous issues Fed 2 home page