Mon Mar 1, 4:20 PM ET

By Peter Starck

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Video games can make children fat and, in the case of violent games popular among teenage and younger boys, aggressive and even criminal, Swedish experts said on Monday.

The games industry, estimated at $200 million a year in Sweden and $10 billion in the United States, is dominated on the hardware side by Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox, Sony Corp's PlayStation and Nintendo Co. Ltd's Game Boy and GameCube consoles.

Electronic Arts Inc., Nintendo, Activision Inc., and Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. are among leading games title publishers.

Take-Two's Rockstar unit's Grand Theft Auto -- a game condemned as "horrendous" by former U.S. Democratic presidential hopeful Joseph Lieberman -- is among titles mentioned by a Swedish television documentary in connection with violent youth crimes.

"It's concerning because they (video game players) are rehearsing scripts of behavior that will possibly play themselves out in real life," Michael Rich, a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics who has studied the effects of entertainment media on the physical and mental health of children, was quoted as saying in the 45-minute "Deadly Game" documentary.

Monday's preview of the film, due for prime time broadcasting on Swedish TV4 television on Wednesday, was followed by a panel debate, which concluded that scientific findings of the effects, if any, of violent video games were scant.

"But it has been proved beyond dispute that people who watch a lot of violence on television develop aggressive behavior," said Frank Lindblad, a child psychiatrist at Sweden's Karolinska Institute university hospital.

DIFFUSE BORDER

"They run a very high risk of criminal behavior ... there's a lot suggesting that video games are worse," he said, noting that many players tended to identify themselves with game heroes.

"The border between the virtual reality and the real world becomes diffuse and that is dangerous," Lindblad said.

Gustav Niel-Berggren, a 16-year-old student who said he tended to spend many hours a day several days a week playing an interactive online action game called Counter-Strike, which focuses on killing opponent soldiers, disagreed.

"Shooting somebody in a game is just like scoring a goal in a football match," he said, dismissing the documentary's suggestion and Lindblad's fear that youths could not distinguish between the game world and real life.

Elisabeth Junttila, a mother of six and head of a nationwide association promoting closer ties between homes and schools, said some children became addicted to video games, spending all their waking hours in front of a computer screen gorging potato chips, pizza and soft drinks.

Anne Folke, co-founder of a lobby seeking to counteract through public awareness campaigns what it sees as the ill effects of video games, said games were consuming ever more of children's time.

"They are in poor physical shape, they eat unhealthily, grow fat and suffer insomnia," she said.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...ure_games_dc_7

word!

I'm living proof of that.

Too much of anything is no good for you.

Short and to the point, Captain Harlock.

Okay, I can accept that video games might make kids fat and violent, but making them Swedish? I find that a little hard to believe.

First McDonalds and now Video Games? I'm calling my lawyer. I think I've got a case.

I blame laziness not the video games.

I blame too much food and not enough exercise.

I blame Janet's boob!

"and suffer insomnia"

I do not! (he says as he types this at four a.m.)

This news makes me really angry and hungry.

I, for one, don't have a problem with this (if it's true...). Angry as they may be, I can always outrun a FAT kid!


zeek

Um, did these "experts" do anything resembling a "scientific study" because it looks like they're probably just "full of shit."

As a parent of three it's my opinion that lack of parenting makes kids fat and violent. We don't allow the consoles to babysit the kids and we know exactly what they are playing, and yes, we make sure they don't play games at their friends house that we don't approve of.

The experts are wrong... I'm not Sweedish!

"Video Games Make Kids Fat, Violent, Swedish"

but can you outrun the bullets from his gun or the shuriken he's throwing?

Swedes should stick to Erotica.

However I can see their point.

A major problem in this country. That's why we have far and away the highest rate of obesity.

And in other news, the sky is blue...

Too much of ANYTHING is not good.

You're Swedish????