Digital Nation and Obesity

  Today’s world is better known as the digital nation. With all of today’s gadgets life has certainly become easier and harder all at the same time. In today’s society our children don’t play outside. They are becoming more and more addicted to the digital world. With these luxuries childhood obesity is a growing epidemic in America.

             According to American Obesity Association,” more than thirty percent of children ages 6-11 are overweight and over fifteen percent are obese.” (Obesity in Children & Video Games, Feb 8, 2011 | By Alexandra Momyer, http://www.livestrong.com/article/376383-obesity-in-children-video-games/) Children today seem to spend a lot of time playing video games and watching TV. By doing these “lazy” activities, children are not getting the physical activity that they need. In turn this causes children to eat unhealthy snacks and have poor eating habits. With minimal exercise, and lowered metabolisms, a person is more likely to gain weight.” Overweight children generally live more sedentary lifestyles and are socially less active. They have more idle time and since video games can be so addictive they find themselves playing games for entertainment. The implications of this are that playing video games could cause obesity rather than obesity being a cause of playing video games" (http://www.helpcurechildobesity.com/video-games-and- obesity.html) Children who are obese have an increased risk for developing serious health conditions such as heart disease, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, fatty liver disease, sleep apnea and asthma.

            Not only does obesity cause physical ailments, but obese children are frequently ostracized by their peers. They tend to feel like social outcasts and often have low self-esteem and feelings of low self-worth.” This can be detrimental to their education and social skills.” (Livestrong) Children spending more time on games and less time with friends and family can affect their social behavior. Some obese children can suffer from lack of social skills, and anxiety. By lacking in social skills children react by misbehaving in school. Their grades drop because studying is not important anymore. They can also be disruptive or destructive. "Teasing that comes directly from teachers in some cases, certainly from peers and even sometimes from their families.” This gets internalized so overweight children feel inferior. They feel like there's something defective with them and therefore they tend not to aspire.  (Impact of Childhood Obesity Goes Beyond Health by Patti Neighmond July 28, 2010, 12:01 AM) Others can react by withdrawing and being anti-social. It causes them to have a low self-esteem and can cause depression.

                       

 The link between video games and obesity is that they both are a sedentary activity which does not require a lot of physical activity. In the old days kids spent a large part of their day outside playing with friends. Now they spend most of their free time playing video games and not burning any calories. It’s absorbing so once they start to play a video game it is hard to put it down and do something else. They just get so absorbed into the game that the time flies and before they know it they have spent several hours playing the game. This makes it difficult to focus on other activities. Games take a long time to complete. Games now days are in fact designed to last longer; be more challenging, so this means that the children are sitting for longer periods of time, and not exercising. (http://EzineArticles.com/4394793 )

Children in today’s society are growing up with one or both parents working. Parents are working long hours to try and make ends meet and can’t supervise their children while playing outdoors. To pass the time until the parents arrive home from work their options are computers or video games. Both of these are played alone. By being alone it can cause a child to become withdrawn from any interaction with people. They can develop anthropophobia which is a fear of human company.  Nintendo came out with a new game system called the Wii. This is an interactive and physical game to help children be competitive with other children and to help them become more active while playing games. This system has games like baseball, bowling, tennis and dance videos. Children can play with the computer, friends or their families.

Today’s children have become very addicted to the digital nation. Obesity among our children is becoming more and more a problem in today’s society. Obesity can cause several different health issues. It can cause children to be bullied or made fun of at school or by their peers. This in turn can cause them to become depressed or have a lack of social behavior. Children become involved in the game and they lose track of time. Games are very challenging and seem to take longer today to complete those challenges. Children that are obese can lose weight and play video games if they would just become a little more active each day.