Online gamers aren't overweight, just depressed junkies, study suggests

by James Ransom-Wiley { Sep 18th 2008 at 8:15PM }

Well, that's a relief. No longer to be demonized as "fat people," online gamers may now be considered "actually, kinda cool." In other words, they're moody drug addicts, indicates a new study that targeted 7,000 EverQuest II players. "The results suggest that adult gamers have an average body mass index of 25.2, compared to the overall American average of 28," reports New Science Tech. "The downside, however, was that the gamers reported more cases of depression and substance abuse than their compatriots."

In fact, participants' addictive personalities were clearly exposed when they greedily exchanged their responses for the study's bait: "The Greatstaff of the Sun Serpent." Admittedly, using a sun staff as incentive was a dirty play, as if there was any chance of brightening up these rain clouds.

[Via /.]

Tags: body-mass-index, depression, everquest-2, substance-abuse

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

syrik zero @ Sep 18th 2008 8:20PM

I work at Apple and I can say that I first hand see a TON of over weight people that play WOW

Neebs @ Sep 18th 2008 8:30PM

That's because those are the Mac WoW players.

Dirty @ Sep 18th 2008 8:40PM

Ton as in combined weight?.... that probably not that many then.

WhoMe @ Sep 18th 2008 8:41PM

No, that's cuz they are Americans.

IIRC, anything over 25 is overweight. You fat American slugs!

But in the end, it all works out, because you have that gaz-guzzling Hummer to ferry your tank of a body around.

syrik zero @ Sep 18th 2008 8:44PM

Hahaha, could be. I'm among the 15 people that are fit here

syrik zero @ Sep 18th 2008 8:51PM

Not all Americans are fat. Just the fat ones

dark_inchworm @ Sep 18th 2008 8:56PM

YOU FAT AMERICAN SLUGS

MY COUNTRY DOESN'T HAVE FAT PEOPLE

HURR HURR HURRRRR

Shmil (Mr ESC Liberation Front) @ Sep 18th 2008 9:12PM

Hey the majority of americans may be fat but we do have nice teeth.

WhoMe @ Sep 18th 2008 9:18PM

Oh yeah, let's not forget the British. If you're an American, at least you can console yourself with the fact that your teeth are probably not as gross as those of your average British bloke.

LaughingTarget @ Sep 18th 2008 9:26PM

BMI doesn't determine being oversight or health. It was developed by a 19th century Dutch dude to compare other 19th century Dutch dudes.

Anticrawl @ Sep 18th 2008 9:46PM

Only reason we have a huge obesity "problem" is because we still use the BMI scale as a standard whereas other countries are not so moronic. Though honestly they probably just keep BMI around as the standard for an easy scapegoat when real problems arise.

The BMI scale is however great for areas of the world where kids aren't so involved and active and aren't being pumped full of bovine hormones from cows milk at a young age. Pretty much if you exercise in the lease and retain some decent muscle mass the BMI scale only serves to falsely label you. The only real way to measure your body fat persentage is do just that, get your body checked out with actual scales and tools used to measure body fat percentage, not some wild guesstimation that was the standard for a group of people decades ago.

WhoMe @ Sep 18th 2008 10:03PM

First off, it was not a Dutch dude, it was a Belgian dude. Do you know the difference?

Secondly, last time I checked, the human body didn't really evolve all that much since the 19th century. People got a bit taller maybe, but then that would work in your favor.

WhoMe @ Sep 18th 2008 10:07PM

So Anticrawl, a great number of Americans aren't "fat", they are just "buff"? Is that what you are saying?

Vcize @ Sep 18th 2008 11:15PM

"Secondly, last time I checked, the human body didn't really evolve all that much since the 19th century."

And the Earth hasn't changed shape in the last 2000 years, so do you believe the scientists from back then that say it was flat?

The point he was making is that science has advanced a lot since the 19th century, and there are now much better ways of measuring these things now.

But then, maybe you were just too skinny to understand.

BananaBoat @ Sep 18th 2008 11:23PM

I'm a rather tall SOB, and Wii Fit tells me I'm fat and makes my Mii larger every time I get on the damn thing to play the Skiing mini game. I don't know if BMI doesn't properly scale for height, or if it doesn't scale properly for the average amount of muscle on a man, but it's clearly not an exact science.

My fat friend nearly jumped off a bridge when he bought Wii Fit, plugged it in, and watched his already fat Mii balloon to epic proportions, while he listened to the "better luck next time, fat ass" music that plays. It literally registered his BMI as off the scale. He was too fat for measurement according to Nintendo.

LaughingTarget @ Sep 19th 2008 8:54AM

Humans, especially in the western nations, have changed dramatically over the last 100 years. 19th century people in Europe and North America still had issues with obtaining enough food. We're taller, healthier and live longer than our ancestors from 150 years ago. It's a decent indicator of malnutrition, not much else. We don't know that much about our biology. Humans have only recently begun to hit genetic potentials in height (which conversely makes national height averages a non-factor in determining health care quality), so it is likely the same is happening with weight.

People are probably supposed to have fat on them. Maybe we're supposed to be oversight and that what was normal in the 19th century is not healthy.

WhoMe @ Sep 19th 2008 8:56AM

I wonder why you go to such lengths debating things that are largely beside the point.

Yes, the BMI system isn't perfect. Maybe we could come up with a better formula today, but that doesn't mean 19th century people were stupid, especially not 19th century scientists.

That doesn't change the fact however that

a) an enormous number of obese people in the USA (together with the UK one of the fattest countries in the world)

b) using the ratio of body mass to height is a PRETTY DAMN GOOD INDICATOR of obesitas.

You can try to argue and try to discredit stuff all you want, these things are simply true.

In the end, the BMI system works pretty well and doesn't require inconvenient measurements and what not. Unless you are an athelete or have some sort of disease or syndrome, it's pretty accurate.

You can tell yourself you are "buff", or "big-boned" or whatever nonsense you want. Fact is, since the industrial revolution people are just sat on their asses growing larger each decade. Having some amount of fat is healty and perfectly normal, but this day and age, a great many people are just too fat.

Shagittarius @ Sep 19th 2008 9:41AM

Americans are fat beacuse of all the imigrants that come here. After they have been here for a while they lose the weight thanks to our supperior culture of hooking up at the gym.

Give us your tired, your poor, your fat bastards....etx

Haggard (Mr.ESC resurrection force) @ Sep 23rd 2008 3:31PM

Americans aren't fat, British people don't have bad teeth and French people don't ride round on bicycles in stripy shirts and berets selling onions.. happy everyone?

john @ Sep 18th 2008 8:21PM

Eh I agree with it more than "their all fat"

DarkNessBear @ Sep 20th 2008 3:00PM

I highly agree that MMORPG's aren't usually fat. I started playing WAR like hardcore, and I literally lost 8 pounds due to not eating at all, and when I do its usually something light like cereal or a quick sangwich or fruit.

Although I am highly depressed and weak now though. Haha.

gir @ Sep 18th 2008 8:29PM

Live to win, 'till you die, 'till the light dies in your eyes
Live to win, take it all, just keep fighting till you fall

Yeah, live, yeah, win!!

Rodrigo @ Sep 18th 2008 8:34PM

im not fat! in fact im skinny and muscular lol and im not depressed either!!

zuburi @ Sep 18th 2008 8:53PM

In all fairness, you're kind of a douche though.

VaultICEE @ Sep 18th 2008 10:43PM

You from New Jersey?

ZING

Professor Lario @ Sep 19th 2008 9:53AM

First laugh of the day award goes to zuburi and VaultICEE.

Paulmichael @ Sep 18th 2008 8:37PM

Wow, the average American BMI is 28? That's well into the overweight category. I'll stick with my ~19, thank you very much.

B @ Sep 18th 2008 9:44PM

BMI isn't a very accurate in telling who's overweight and who's not

Bass Masterson @ Sep 18th 2008 8:40PM

The 'average BMI' thing has been shown time and again to be entirely flawed. It's one of the reasons we have the (incorrect) reputation as 'the fattest nation in the world' - that and the America-hating crowd that love to repeat this information over and over and over, even after it has been debunked.

t_m @ Sep 20th 2008 2:13AM

I dunno... i went to Hawaii last month and everyone was freakin fat! Maybe thats just hawaii.

Also, all the food was honestly at least 2 times the size of food over here, and even the bottles of Coke were double the size of the ones here.

I can't imagine how anyone could live there and NOT be fat.
I gained weight in 7 days!!

theturtle363 @ Sep 18th 2008 8:42PM

well, i do take a lot of antihistamines

zuburi @ Sep 18th 2008 10:23PM

I thought it was funny :(

xGeneral DEATHx @ Sep 19th 2008 8:02AM

You seem pretty buff in that picture.

theturtle363 @ Sep 19th 2008 8:53AM

my massive muscles can defeat killer croc, but my real arch nemesis is Ragweed

xGeneral DEATHx @ Sep 19th 2008 8:58AM

LMAO!

anthony @ Sep 18th 2008 8:53PM

why would they pick EQ for their study?

BigD145 @ Sep 19th 2008 12:21AM

It has a long lifetime and includes plenty of EQ1 people. This means you have people that have been hooked for a long time. Long enough to actually change their body mass. Long enough to find out that level grinding really is only enjoyable when you're high.

yojimb0 @ Sep 19th 2008 1:40AM

yeah, but surely as a population sample of mmo players, they're kind of out of date, no? they're far from "typical" at this point. also, you're pretty funny :)

antsmarching @ Sep 18th 2008 9:00PM

@WhoMe

I realize that America is fatter than the rest of the world, but a lot of that image is just overexposure in the media. But come on man, you should only make fun of Americans if you are American. Canada and France are fair game, though. And, as the late 20th century philosophers Matt Stone and Trey Parker so eloquently put it,

"America. Fuck, yeah! So lick my butt and suck on my balls"

antsmarching @ Sep 18th 2008 9:02PM

Oh god i forgot to hit reply up top. Umm... I mean...

THE COMMENT SYSTEM IS DOWN AGAIN!!!

tidefan94 @ Sep 20th 2008 1:57PM

your icon is so amazing...

Bass Masterson @ Sep 18th 2008 9:05PM

Your fellow Americans are too busy watching the Daily Show and cracking wise about their imaginary 'fattest country' to bother looking up facts, like the explosion of obesity in Canada and Europe

Canada (note that Canada uses 'voluntary respondents' while America uses CDC studies; also note that America has much higher black & Latin populations, which account for a large portion of our obesity statistics):
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070327/obesity_committee_070327/20070327/
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2005/07/06/obese050706.html

zuburi @ Sep 18th 2008 10:26PM

Bass' comment was amazing because not only did it come off as stinking of paranoid nationalism, it ALSO managed to somehow put the blame on minorities!

o/` I bet I can guess who you're voting for o/`

RankHypocrisy @ Sep 19th 2008 9:33AM

@Zuburi

Hey genius, if you could keep your PC thought-police knee from jerking long enough to look at some statistics, you would see that minorities in the US DO tend to have higher rates of obesity.

Here is a quote directly from the website of the Obesity Association of America -- Overweight and obesity in the U.S. occur at higher rates in racial / ethnic minority populations such as African American and Hispanic Americans, compared with White Americans.

OMG Racism!

Au @ Sep 20th 2008 12:12AM

The fact that you refer to Matt Stone and Trey Parker for your intellectual philosophy by default puts your comment into the realm of disregardable idiocy.

You shouldn't be unfairly prejudice to the people of any country, even if you are from the country that you're hating.

Also, regarding your quotation:

"America. Fuck, yeah! So lick my butt and suck on my balls"

It was satire, poking funs at idiots that are ironically, a lot like you.