The weekly newsletter for Fed2 by ibgames

EARTHDATE: January 24, 2010

Official News page 4


REAL LIFE NEWS: COMPUTER GAMES GIVE YOU RICKETS - SHOCK, HORROR!

by Hazed

The front pages of the British tabloids a few days ago were full of the shocking story that computer games are now responsible for yet more problems: they give kids rickets.

What???!?

The story goes like this. The number of cases of the deficiency disease rickets amongst British children is rising. Presumably that's the part of the story that is a genuine fact. But then it goes off into wild speculation. The cause, two doctors from Newcastle University say, is that kids spend too many hours indoors playing videogames.

Rickets is caused by a lack of vitamin D. The body makes its own vitamin D when exposed to sunlight, so lack of exposure to the sun, coupled with a poor diet, can lead to a deficiency - and that leads to the disease rickets, which was very common in Victorian times and earlier, but since then has been rare because of improved diets.

But now, the doctors say, more than 20 new cases are discovered every year in Newcastle alone. So of course it must be computer games that are to blame.

How about looking at other reasons children might not be spending a lot of time outside? Lack of places for them to play... parents fear of "stranger danger" keeping them indoors... no, let's blame computer games for all the evils of the world.

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