My Overweight Child: Online Games Influence Kids' Food Choices

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Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Online Games Influence Kids' Food Choices

Researchers have revealed that the content of online videogames can influence a child's food choices -- for better or for worse.

Researchers with Georgetown University asked nine-years-olds to play one of two different versions of a videogame.
In one version, the idea was to make a character eat less nutritious foods, such as potato chips, soda, candy and chocolate chip cookies.
The second version rewarded the children with points if their characters ate healthy foods like fruits and vegetables.

"Within only 10 minutes of exposure to the videogames, our results revealed that children selected whatever snacks were being marketed by the games, whether they were healthy or not," the researchers reported in a July 14 ScienceDaily article.

The Georgetown study was published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

Labels: advertising, nutrition, video_games