New Study: Average gamer is overweight + depressed - Page 2

On August 19 2009 09:21 pencilcase wrote:
Source:http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32463904/ns/technology_and_science-games/wid/11915829&GT1=40006

A new study says the average age of video-game players in the United States is 35, and oh, by the way: They're overweight and tend to be depressed.

Investigators from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Emory University and Andrews University analyzed survey data from 552 adults in the Seattle-Tacoma area. The subjects ranged in age from 19 to 90, according to the study, published in the October issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

The hypothesis was that video-game players have a higher body mass index — the measure of a person's weight in relation to their height — and "a greater number of poor mental health days" versus nonplayers, said Dr. James B. Weaver III of the CDC's National Center for Health Marketing. The hypothesis was correct, he said.

The findings, he said in the article, "differentiated adult video-game players from nonplayers. Video-game players also reported lower extraversion, consistent with research on adolescents that linked video-game playing to a sedentary lifestyle and overweight status, and to mental-health concerns."

The Seattle-Tacoma area was chosen for the study, researchers said, both because of its size as the 13th largest media market in the United States and because its Internet usage level is "the highest in the nation." The study was done in 2006; the results analyzed in 2008.

10 January 2004: Between international terrorism and a struggling economy, today's US citizens are faced with more stress than ever, claims a study released in January 2004. In this study, Portland-based Sperling's BestPlaces have identified the most and least stressful US cities.

The ‘Sperling Stress Index’ is composed of nine different factors which are associated with stress: unemployment rate, divorce rate, travel-to-work time, violent and property crime rates, suicide rate, alcohol consumption, self-reported ‘poor mental health’ and number of cloudy days.

Main findings
Tacoma, Washington, a city of some 195,000 people and situated 50 kilometres south of Seattle, ranks as the most stressful city of the 100 largest metro areas. Galveston, Texas, earns the dubious honour in the mid-size category, and Yuba City, California, is the most stressful among the smallest metro areas.

On August 19 2009 09:43 psion0011 wrote:

Except BMI is perfect for statistical uses.

On August 19 2009 09:58 micronesia wrote:

What do you mean it's perfect for statistical uses? It's a bad indicator of health... so how is it perfect for any use?

edit: caller: did they have a control of nongamers to compare? If so then they aren't retarded!

On August 19 2009 10:02 Caller wrote:

no you misunderstand

People tend to be outgoing or not outgoing.
People who stay inside and play games are apparently depressed and overweight.
People who are outgoing are not as depressed and overweight.

Maybe a reason why people are depressed is because their overweight.
Mayber a reason why they're playing video games and not outgoing is because nobody wants to hangout with overweight people. As a result, they are depressed.

Females who play video games are even more depressed. Obviously, because if they are overweight and not that outgoing, they are not likely to want to go out as they would be shunned. This would of course make them play video games and make them depressed.

This is as bad as saying oh, those school shooters play Grand Theft Auto, therefore video games turn people into murderers! There are too many variables and they fail to establish casuality.

On August 19 2009 10:11 micronesia wrote:

First of all I don't see what I misunderstood. Your original complaint was that they didn't take into account the fact that region could cause people to be depressed anyway, to which I said they could use nongamers as a control.

You are right that there is much more to make their study reasonably valid, but I don't think what they concluded was retarded. They really didn't make any sweeping claims... just pointed out some connections that were apparent.

On August 19 2009 10:14 Caller wrote:


yet they still published the results and misleaded their results to a much stronger and different conclusion than was truthful
sorry, i just get pissed when this happens
kind of like when you dodge sc 1v1

On August 19 2009 10:16 micronesia wrote:

How did they mislead people? I didn't read it that carefully, but it didn't specify what were causes and what were effects. If people choose to misread a study, then blame those people.

On August 19 2009 10:23 Railz wrote:
I'm only depressed when I'm not playing a game or at school =P

On August 19 2009 09:21 pencilcase wrote:
Both male and female video game players spend more time than nonplayers seeking friendship and support on the Internet, the study found, "a finding consistent with prior research pointing to the willingness of adult video-game enthusiasts to sacrifice real-world social activities to play video games."

On August 19 2009 10:28 StorrZerg wrote:



yeah just look at INC...