More and more often,
I meet kids who regularly do amazing things. On any old
Saturday they might fly a plane, win a championship soccer
game and climb to the top of an ancient pyramid. Then they'll
have some lunch. After that, who knows? Maybe they'll race
a car on one of the world's most demanding racetracks, single-handedly
build an amusement park, or, if there's time, somehow save
the universe by jumping across a series of bottomless chasms.
Just hearing about these adventures wears me out. These
kids must be physical specimens. And yet it seems like nearly
every newspaper I pick up contains an article about rising
child obesity rates. A few weeks ago, I read a story on
a new study from the University of North Carolina showing
that kids are getting fatter because they're getting less
exercise. I'm glad the UNC scientists conducted the study,
and I'm grateful to the papers for running the story, but
the findings of the study weren't news to me. New evidence
like this pops up every few weeks, and my own informal findings
agree. In fact, many of the very kids who have such grueling
Saturdays are the ones who are overweight.
By now you've probably guessed where I'm going with all
of this. The kids I meet aren't actually performing these
amazing acts. Their onscreen personas are. With the incredible
hyper-realism of video games, children can explore worlds
undreamed of a decade ago. But all too often, the wide world
in their own backyards goes unexplored. While onscreen characters
with washboard abs do mid-air summersaults, the kids in
control are getting a workout too-but only for their thumbs.
As the average American kid's weekly media diet increases-up
to over 35 hours a week now-the same kid's weekly amount
of physical activity plummets. And, as the UNC study proves,
less physical activity usually leads to more body fat. It's
simple logic. If you're spending time equivalent to a full
time job sitting in front of a video screen, you can't be
outside getting the exercise you need.
Video games and other media are so easy to use, it's easy
to burn a whole Saturday in front of the screen. The immediate
pay-off of electronic media-the hyper-real spectacle and
multi-sensory barrage of excitement-can be too seductive
to turn down. It's not that kids don't like playing out
in the backyard anymore-they probably figure they'll get
around to it. But once they start in on their video games,
they're hooked, and before they know it, a whole Saturday
is gone.
Recently I read another article about an innovative new
physical education program in California that is helping
kids get fit by playing video games. It sounded impossible,
until I read on and found out that while the students' thumbs
are busy with control pads, the rest of their bodies are
busy with fitness machines like exercycles. I don't think
a program like this should completely replace the games
kids play in a good old-fashioned gym class, but if it's
helping them burn calories, I'm all for it. And I hope when
they get home from school, they leave the Playstation alone
for a few hours and go play in the yard.
David Walsh, Ph.D. is the president and
founder of the National Institute on Media and the Family
(www.mediafamily.org).
He has written seven books and is a frequent guest on national
radio and television.
