McDonald's UK CEO Blames Video Games for Childhood Obesity 321
BoingBoing is reporting that Steve Eaterbrook, McDonald's UK CEO, says that video games are leading the charge in obesity. He does have the decency to at least admit fatty foods are a part of the problem, but points the finger at interactive games for keeping kids indoors and not out burning off energy. "According to The Times, McDonalds UK is 'on the brink of its best year for two decades'. The firm has enjoyed six per cent like-for-like sales growth in the last year. More than 88 million visits were made to McDonald's restaurants last month, up 10 million on the previous year." Don't forget, we have known for ages that video games make us fat and mean.
Re:Helmet Society (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Helmet Society (Score:5, Interesting)
You know what ruined it for me?
Air Conditioning. Cheap electricity, Central A/C, and summers just got too hot to bother going out in. Heating in the winter made going out in it too cold, nevermind our forebears survived quite handily. A couple years ago, I started an experiment. I quit using the A/C except for when I was expecting company. I opened up my windows, turned on a fan to circulate the air, and wouldn't you know it? I was hot, but after a couple weeks, I got used to it. Walking into an office building felt like I was walking into a meat freezer. My electricity bill halved, if not more. I was amazed. I went out for walks more. I lost 30 pounds that summer, because it was no longer "too hot" to go outside.
SO, I don't think it's video games, for sure. Video games are just what you do when it's too hot to go outside, and it becomes a habit. Turn off your a/c, let your athlon crank your room to 120 degrees, and you'll *want* to go do something else for awhile.
Keys lipid hypothesis is dead... (Score:2, Interesting)
Keys lipid hypothesis is dead... scientist are fleeing it like rats from a sinking ship. The media just hasn't caught up yet.
The truly frightening thing is that the diet that US and Canadian governments have been recommending over that last 30 years is pretty much the same thing that we use to fatten cattle up for slaughter.
NOT potkettleblack (Score:1, Interesting)
Barring certain metabolic syndromes, it is the choices that people make that are responsible for obesity.
I play video games. I eat at toadburgers. I have a decent BMI. I exercise. I practice moderation.
The "fast food nation" folks are hardly any better than Jack Thomspon's lot.
Re:Helmet Society (Score:2, Interesting)
Case in point, if creepy dude back then made unseemly remarks or advances upon a kid, 9 times out of 10, the dad would march over creepy dudes house and punch the guy in the nose until he was a bloody pulp. Police and courts weren't involved and the creepy dude was held in check.
Today, if that happened, creepy dude would walk away knowing that 1/2 the time there is no dad, and even if there was a dad, the dad wouldn't and couldn't punch him in the nose, and if the dad did that, dad would end up arrested, in front of a judge and then in jail, while the creepy dude remains free to molest more kids.
Okay, so there is a tad over simplification here.
I'm of the opinion that creepy dudes are also more prevalent today because of access to creepy dude material is much easier to come by.
Re:Yes but... (Score:3, Interesting)
Calories in video games? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Helmet Society (Score:2, Interesting)
Air conditioning fosters laziness in architects; had your home been designed knowing air condition would not be used, the result would be radically different. Indeed, it would be more comfortable. Cars are effectively the same: cheap energy results in lazy designers.
I should add that none of this is meant to imply a regressive approach to building and city making, as the new urbanists frequently advocate to our peril. Indeed, the very best modern and contemporary architecture endeavour s to incorporate such issues.
Re:The real problem (Score:3, Interesting)
Now, people who think fat people are *bad* or *amoral*, those people are assholes. But the fact remains that being fat will kill you early, and will impact the quality of your life for a long time before you die.
I'm not judging you or other fat people. I'm just speaking the truth. It's bad for you. I used to be fat, and thanks to the laws of thermodynamics I'm not any more. I can ride my bike 50 miles and feel great the rest of the day. I can run, do pushups, etc. I couldn't do that way back when I was in high school spending my time in a basement playing Wolfenstein and watching horror movies, all the while stuffing my face and lamenting my lack of a girlfriend.
Actually, it's often the opposite. (Score:3, Interesting)
Though sugar- and caffeine-laden drinks can perhaps wind a person up, most of a typical fast-food menu would probably leave you feeling lethargic and feeling a bit calmer, due to the high-fat content and other chemicals such as the enzymes in the cheese on your burger. That's what's a bit perverse about a lot of restaurant meals--not only will they make you feel fat, they'll put you in a lazy mood so you are less motivated to be active. When those effects wear off you'll feel tired and grumpy, then you'll want to eat more bad food to get that mild euphoria again.
Anyways, this McDonalds bigwig is actually talking out of hid butt. Video games don't make people fat--the lack of physical activity is what partly contributes to weight gain. Some video games are GOOD for your health...how many morbidly obese people have YOU seen playing the advanced levels on DDR for example? And many Nintendo Wii titles certainly encourage people to get up and move. In any case, sedentary video-game playing is only partly the cause of weight gain. The other much bigger contributer to weight gain is excessive caloric intake. Kids who don't snack and skip meals because they are compulsively playing video games are SKINNY kids (still unhealthy, but skinny). Kids who snack on junk food and eat Big Macs between levels are FAT kids.
Research has now widely shown that thoguh exercise is essential to good health, by far the largest single contributer to obesity is DIET. It only takes moments longer to eat a supersized value meal than it does to eat a regular value meal, but it takes a half-hour of moderate activity to burn off the extra calories...worse yet, you can eat a fast food meal faster than you can eat a home-cooked meal, but it would take an extra hour of moderate activity to burn off the calories. As far as fixing obesity goes, priority one should be fixing people's over-processed, carb-loaded, calorie-dense diet.
That said, though, McDonald's is not the most evil of offenders in providing us with easy access to a nasty diet and it really does get far more flak than it deserves (perhaps because it is a big corporation that markets toward children which amplifies the focus on McDo). The baddest, most evil food-mongers are most of the "casual dining" restaurant franchises, primarily because of their insanely huge portions (especially in the United States). Appetiser platters at these eateries are actually large enough for 2 to 4 complete meals. "Meal sized" salads can approach 1500 Calories. Surveys have been done that show that "healthy choice" or "lighter fare" meals even have excessive portions...too much of even a good thing will make you fat.
Re:In related news (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The Layer Cake of Disappointment (Score:3, Interesting)
The issue here is that the government should educate the parents but in the USA you are talking about people that think "wtf I dont like the government telling me what to do". Or at least, try to educate the kids.
I've got two examples of that. One is here in the UK, I read some time ago that some schools in Scotlands where implementing a "points" program for kids lunch. They provide certain healthy menu, but the problem they had is that kids went to buy crap food, so they made each food had some points in value and kids could then change the points for videogames and the like.
Such thing would not work in the USA because of the mentality of the parents (wtf you [the government] are inciting my kids to eat something!!).
The second example is related to "teaching kids". Campeche, Mexico [wikipedia.org] used to be a very very dirty city (I lived there for 15 years). However, something like 7 years ago, the government established a program that thaught in government schools (where the majority of kids go) about polluting and thrash issues. It was amazing that you could see that the kids *told* to their parents to pick up the thrash when they threw it by the street. It was the kids who where educating the parents! If you go to the city now, there is an outstanding difference.
But hey, let everybody blame everybody else. Of course McDonalds won't say that the parents are to blame because they would be shooting themselves in the foot by attacking their customers.