Gaming Over 10 Hours Weekly? New Study Links to Poor Diet & Sleep

We’ve got great news for everyone who’s ever been kept awake until the wee hours of the morning by a family member or housemate screaming obscenities at their monitor while playing video games. Your lectures about how playing video games for so long isn’t healthy now have new scientific justification. A paper published earlier this month in the journal Nutrition found an association between gaming more than 10 hours a week and poor diet quality, higher body mass, and lower sleep quality. The research suggests that playing video games isn’t the main problem, but overdoing the amount of time dedicated to it, according to Mario Siervo, a co-author of the study from the Curtin School of Population Health. Hardcore gaming might impact health “What stood out was students gaming up to 10 hours a week all looked very similar in terms of diet, sleep and body weight,” he said in a Curtin University statement. “The real differences emerged in those gaming more than 10 hours a week, who showed clear divergence from the rest of the sample.” Siervo and his coworkers worked with over 300 students from Australian universities who self-reported how much time they spent gaming per week. Based on this information, the team organized them into three categories—low gamers (0 to 5 hours of gaming per week), moderate gamers (5 to 10 hours per week), and high gamers (more than 10 hours per week). Low and moderate gamers described similar health statuses, which were significantly worse for high gamers. For example, the researchers noted lower diet quality for high gamers. Heavy gamers were more likely to be obese, with a median BMI of 26.3. By comparison, low and moderate gamers had healthier averages of 22.2 and 22.8, respectively. “Each additional hour of gaming per week was linked to a decline in diet quality, even after accounting for stress, physical activity and other lifestyle factors,” Siervo explained. Poor sleep quality If you’re trying to argue against your household gamer logging 10 hours a week, sleep quality might be your strongest case. In the study, all three categories reported poor sleep quality overall, though moderate and high gamers had lower scores than low gamers. The study found an important association between gaming hours and sleep disruption. “This study doesn’t prove gaming causes these issues, but it shows a clear pattern that excessive gaming may be linked to an increase in health risk factors,” Siervo clarified. “Our data suggests low and moderate gaming is generally fine, but excessive gaming may crowd out healthy habits such as eating a balanced diet, sleeping properly and staying active.” To which he added: “Because university habits often follow people into adulthood, healthier routines such as taking breaks from gaming, avoiding playing games late at night and choosing healthier snacks may help improve their overall wellbeing.”