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Controller goes in the hands
Calories go in the mouth
By Sean Quast
If children hadn’t spent all those long hours eating their way through Bubble Bobble, a game in which all the good power-ups are desserts, then maybe they would be healthier now
It is about time I said it: Video games have turned children into a group of porkers. They promote a gross and disgusting lifestyle filled with fried and sugary foods, and this sad trend shows no signs of changing.
Never have I once heard someone say, “Hey, I have to pause this and grab myself some cooked carrots and cup of yogurt.” I have heard, “Hold on a sec - I’m going to go zap an Easy Mac.”
Video games are centered around junk food. Think about the ties between video games, Mountain Dew and Doritos. I must say nothing comes to mind quicker than the image of a gamer pounding back the Dew while getting cool ranch dust all over his controller until the wee hours of the morning.
I think it all started with early games and how many had classic junk food or fast food staples as sources of health replenishment. I have no problems with hearts for health replenishment source, love can fuel anything, but I’ll tell you what else can: French fries and fountain drinks.
If children hadn’t spent all those long hours eating their way through “Bubble Bobble,” a game in which all the good power-ups are desserts, then maybe they would be healthier now. But lets not just blame “Bubble Bobble,” there is plenty of blame to go around, and it not just one system’s fault, either.
Never once in any video game did I see healthy food offered as a source of health recovery. The closest thing one can think of is a shank of meat. (Lord knows what kind of meat it was.) But how healthy can eating a whole shank of meat really be, anyway? If that’s not going to lead to a heart attack real fast, why not just have a can of fryer grease for character to slurp down?
This phenomenon got even worse during the early ‘90s when video games began centering their content on junk food and nothing else. Games based on Ronald McDonald and the Magical Treasureland graced the Sega Genesis, while the Domino’s pizza-crushing villain the Noid had his own video game, called “Yo! Noid.”
This is insane! Can’t you just picture all the fat little kids sitting and eating a whole Domino’s pizza while mashing their way through the game’s 14 levels? This sickens me right to my morally right core.
Although these video games did feature the characters doing a lot of exercising, they never showed the inevitable crash they should have felt after eating all that junk food. Nor did they ever get fat.
Seriously, if there is one thing I can applaud “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas” for, it is finally teaching children you will get fat from eating crappy food all day long.
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