Parents who allow their children unlimited, unsupervised access to violent computer games are causing a “ticking time bomb” of obesity and mental health issues.

So says Shaun Weatherhead, founder of a motivational company that goes into schools with a programme of health, fitness and inspirational coaching.

Shaun, who lives in the Holme Valley, says he knows of children as young as eight or nine who are ‘gaming’ until the early hours of the morning and then turning up for school too tired to work.

He added: “I am going into communities where parents just aren’t engaged with their children. The children have computers in their bedrooms, or hand-held devices they can use to access games, and they’re on them from walking in from school until they go to bed until 2am and no-one is telling them to stop. This has an impact on their sleep patterns, their behaviour and their learning.”

Since launching U Can Shine in 2006 Shaun has worked all over the country, including in Kirklees, but more recently he has been closely involved with communities, ranked as being areas of social deprivation, in the North West. He will soon be delivering his award-winning programme in parts of Leeds.

Father-of-three Shaun, a former professional footballer and personal trainer, says parents are also failing to ‘police’ the types of games their children play. He explained: “I had a conversation with a group of eight-year-olds recently who were all going on Grand Theft Auto, which had been bought by a parent for them or for a sibling. They are playing all these violent games, which start to condition kids and affect their behaviour. It’s quite scary what they are being exposed to. It’s role modelling.”

While in recent years a number of killing sprees by young people have been attributed to the excessive playing of violent games, research appears to be fraught with difficulties.

One of the problems of getting a definitive answer to the question of how youngsters are affected by computer games is the simple fact that children are not legally allowed to buy or play games rated for adult use only. As Dr Simon Goodson, senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Huddersfield points out: “We do a lot of video game research but we can’t test children because they are not supposed to play these violent games.” However, ongoing research with adult test subjects at Huddersfield has found no connection between violent games and increased levels of aggression. “What we have found,” added Dr Goodson, “is that when people play a driving or football game, something they can relate to, it can stimulate emotions more than when they play a violent game and ‘kill’ somebody.”

But he too believes that parents need to exercise tighter controls over their children’s activities. Dr Goodson said: “You have to ask ‘would you let your seven-year-old watch a hard core porn film or a horror film?’ The issue is parents giving children age-inappropriate material. Some parents say ‘it’s only a computer game’ and there’s peer pressure for children to play them, but the bottom line is that children aren’t supposed to play them.”

And does he think that excessive gaming could damage children’s future mental health? He answered: “Doing anything all the time is not healthy, but you have to think that games like Grand Theft Auto might be played by 30m people but only a handful of them go on to murder someone. You have to get things in perspective.” Dr Goodson does, however, believe that the growing use of digital technology can impede children’s social development because making friends on-line is not the same as face-to-face contact and all the skills that entails.

But even if excessive gaming is not responsible for aggressive behaviour, Shaun points out that it certainly reduces children’s levels of physical activity - a worring trend in itself.

“The biggest change that has happened since I was a kid is the level of physical activity. It has dropped so much it’s almost unbelievable,” he said. “We’d come home and go out to kick a football about. Today, children are losing two to three hours a day of physical activity. It’s not rocket science to add that up and see that over a year that’s a lot of time. And it’s not just physical wellbeing, it’s the loss of mental wellbeing that you get from exercise.”

Shaun’s own children, Leah, 13; Rylee, 9; and Remi, 3, are being raised with a U Can Shine ethic. “They don’t play a lot of computer games,” said Shaun, “We’ve got a Wii and the family goes on that, usually around Christmas, but my kids are filling their time with a lot of activities.” (Leah plays netball for Kirklees and her brother plays football, while the youngest attends dancing classes with her sister).

He accepts some parents don’t have enough money to buy into activities for their children but says many could be doing more. “They could do something with their children, instead of just allowing them to spend hours in their bedroom on the computer. The problem is that many parents are not active themselves,” he said.

Of course, not all computer games are violent and there are many educational and fun games aimed at children. When working in schools Shaun, whose company won a Golden Apple Awards ‘Fit for life’ Category educational award in 2013, uses an on-line ‘game’ called Mathletics, which encourages pupils to challenge and improve their maths skills.

“Game technology can be used positively,” he said. “But nobody is addressing the ticking time bomb of obesity and mental health problems in this country.”

* The Video Standards Council rates games as 18 + if they depict ‘gross violence, explicit sexual activity and drug use’. But a 12-rated game can contain violence, nudity and bad language.

Huddersfield games developer Fiona Stewart says the games industry gets lambasted for children playing age-inappropriate computer games when the blame lies fairly and squarely with parents.

“We have to go through a rigorous rating system and the fact is that parents shouldn’t be allowing children to play Grand Theft Auto,” she added.

“There’s a reason why games are rated an 18, but a lot of parents ignore the ratings completely. I have a friend who works in Game and I know they are always very careful when selling games to point out the age rating.”

However Fiona, who is MD of Formerdroid Ltd and has three children of her own - aged 18,16 and nine - believes that age-appropriate and controlled game playing can be a positive force in a child’s life.

Splemy, a computer game from Formerdroid Ltd of Huddersfield
Splemy, a computer game from Formerdroid Ltd of Huddersfield

“My nine-year-old has grown up with technology and is better at it than I am and I work in the industry,” she said. “Because this world is becoming ‘technophiled’ it’s important that children do have access to play games.

“Games are an age-old thing. Many computer games start off as board games or card games and as a family we are very keen on playing board games.”

Formerdroid is about to launch its first game, described by Fiona as a “platform puzzler game”, for the Windows 8 mobile. The game has a rating of 3+, which makes it suitable for all, and features a character called Splemy, who evolves on a journey to find his creator through 75 levels.

Splemy, which attracted backing from software giant Microsoft, has its origins in a prototype created by Fiona and her team at the Global Game Jam 2012 (a competition that gives developers just 48 hours to come up with a working game). It has already won an award from the International Game Developers Association and has been nominated for a BAFTA.

Fiona’s background as an artist is evident in Splemy, which has colourful, imaginative artwork.

“It is very easy to play, but brings a whole different skill set for children,” she said.

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