If anyone out there in the vast expanse of the internet is complaining about kids these days playing video games, a new study published in the journal Nutrition suggests that they should be more specific in their complaints, because gaming itself isn’t the problem. The real problem is how much time people spend doing it.
Researchers from Curtin University analyzed data from more than 300 Australian university students who reported how many hours a week they spent gaming. The participants were split into three groups: low gamers (0–5 hours), moderate gamers (5–10 hours), and high gamers (more than 10 hours).
The results are almost exactly what you would expect.
Low and moderate gamers looked basically the same in terms of diet, sleep, and body weight. The real drop-off happened once gaming crossed the 10-hour mark.
Students in the high-gaming group had poorer diet quality, higher body mass indexes, and worse sleep. Their median BMI landed at 26.3, edging into overweight territory, compared to much healthier averages of 22.2 and 22.8 among low and moderate gamers. According to lead researcher Mario Siervo, each additional hour of gaming per week was associated with a measurable decline in diet quality, even after accounting for stress, exercise, and other lifestyle factors.
Sleep is already elusive for some college students, but it took a huge hit if that student was a gamer trying to squeeze in 10+ hours of gaming a week. While all groups reported poor sleep overall, moderate and high gamers fared worse, hinting at moderate and high gamers swapping out some hours of sleep for some extra XP farming sessions.
Excessive gaming makes students neglect other, arguably more important parts of their lives and health, like getting enough sleep, moving even just a little bit, and cooking real food. All gamers have to do, according to the researchers, to mitigate some of the risk is take some more breaks and don’t game deep into the night. Small changes like that could make a huge difference in both short and long-term health while still leaving plenty of room to get lost in a digital world.
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