by If you have concerns about your child’s gaming habits, talk to a health care provider. They can offer advice on how to balance screen time with healthy activities that will benefit your child’s mental, physical and social health.
They Are Addicting
Video games are highly addictive, and for some people, gaming can become a serious problem. When gamers begin to lose control over their gaming, it can cause them to spend hours each day playing, often without sleeping. This can damage their health, relationships and social life. It can also impact their grades, employment and career.
Some researchers believe that the addiction to video games should be classified as a mental disorder. However, others are sceptical and worry that labeling gaming addiction could pathologize normal teenager behavior. They also worry that referring to video game addiction as a mental illness may confuse the public.
The argument that video games are addictive is based on the fact that they stimulate the brain, triggering a fight-or-flight response. This response can be triggered by the violent and dangerous situations in the games. It can also be triggered by the high levels of stimulation in some games, and by the sense of accomplishment that a gamer receives when they complete a level or achieve a reward.
Gaming addiction can have many negative effects on a person’s health and wellbeing, including mood swings, lack of sleep, poor nutrition and deteriorating physical health. It can also cause financial and professional problems, as gamers often have expensive hardware and a high-speed Internet connection. In addition, they can miss work or school, and their families are often affected too.
They Encourage Sedentary Behavior
Despite their popularity and burgeoning presence in global popular culture, video games have a reputation for encouraging sedentary behavior. This sedentary lifestyle is linked to poor health outcomes such as musculoskeletal injuries, higher body mass indexes, and sleeping problems. Furthermore, excessive gaming can lead to aggression and a lack of social interaction. Nevertheless, some studies have shown that video games can improve cognitive skills and foster creativity.
Many traditional video games involve complex scenarios that require players to think quickly and make rapid decisions. These strategies can help gamers develop problem-solving and strategic thinking skills, which are valuable lifelong skills. Furthermore, video games can increase concentration and focus, especially in people with attention disorders.
One study assigned participants to watch TV, play a non-active video game, or play an active video game where they moved their bodies to control the game. The researchers found that people who played the motion-controlled video game consumed fewer calories than those watching TV. However, the results of this study were limited by its cross-sectional design and its use of self-reported data that is prone to social desirability and recall bias.
Another study used a longitudinal design and measured physical activity during the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany. This study found that although video game playing increased during the pandemic, it was offset by an increase in other forms of physical activity. However, the researchers also excluded studies that were published in languages other than French or English, which may have distorted the overall results.
They Can Lead to Obesity
Before video games came along children spent much of their free time playing outside, riding bikes, throwing a ball around or other physical activities. These days, many kids are spending a lot of their time sitting on the couch playing video games. This is causing them to become overweight. Obesity can lead to a number of health problems including heart disease and early death.
A recent study in the Journal of Pediatrics found that children who play a lot of video games are more likely to be obese than those who don’t. The researchers looked at the behavior of 16,000 children over the course of their childhoods and adolescences. They found that those who played a lot of video games as kids were nine times more likely to have a high body mass index (BMI) as teenagers than children who didn’t play a lot of video games. This was even after controlling for other factors such as exercise, television watching and other sedentary behaviors.
Previous research has shown that screen time, in general, is associated with obesity. However, most of these studies haven’t examined video game play as a specific activity. This latest study examined the MOPO (MOPO is slang for conscription-aged men in Finland) data of 1265 adolescent boys who filled out questionnaires on their gaming habits. The study also included physiological measurements and medical examinations. The results showed that adolescent boys who played more than three hours of video games per day on weekdays were more likely to be overweight than those who did not play so long.
