While gaming is often blamed for increased obesity in young people, another childhood disease is being brought up by British doctors: rickets. Times Online is reporting that an article in the British Medical Journal is saying that rickets is becoming “disturbingly common” among British children.
“Kids tend to stay indoors more these days and play on their computers instead of enjoying the fresh air,” said Professor Simon Pearce of Newcastle University. “This means their vitamin D levels are worse than in previous years.”
Rickets is caused by a lack of vitamin D, usually a result of poor dietary habits and low sunlight exposure. Severe cases can lead to bow legs, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, cancers and the weakening of bones in adults.
“I am dismayed by the increasing numbers of children we are treating with this entirely preventable condition,” added Dr Tim Cheatham, a senior lecturer in paediatric endocrinology at Newcastle. “Fifty years ago many children would have been given regular doses of cod liver oil, but this practice has all but died out.”
Games once again get the bad rap, when there are multiple causes for this situation; indoor distractions like TV, movies and the Internet have made children of the Western world much more sedentary. It's also another case where parents need to get tough with their kids and make them do what they do not prefer; if kids are given Pepsi to drink at dinner as opposed to milk, it's not the soft-drink's fault.
4 Comments
January 25, 2010
David, while I agree that much of this IS the parents' responsibility to address, I have to take issue with the knee-jerk defensiveness of games. First of all, I don't actually see you quoting anything that says "video games." In fact, your quote says "play on computers," which certainly does include the Internet. As for TV and movies, both of these distractions have been around for decades, so they are not likely to be accountable for a change in the frequency of this disease amongst children. Anyway, just seemed to me like you got a little more worked-up than was warranted on this one. Go easy on the indignation.
January 25, 2010
If you read the original article referenced the very first sentence is:
"The many hours children spend indoors playing computer games or watching television may be to blame for a resurgence of rickets."
January 25, 2010
Games were originally pegged as the main cause explicitly. My problem is that they don't specifically address the multiple likely causes of this upsurge in rickets (sedentary activities and plain malnutrition); it's games being beaten about the face again.
March 11, 2010
My problem is that they don't specifically address the multiple likely causes of this upsurge in rickets (sedentary activities and plain malnutrition)..
psp memory