Hey Fatty, get off the PS3

In response to this article about England's way of dealing with obesity:

England, in its anti-obesity campaign, is encouraging parents to limit amount of time children spend on their consoles. They're missing the point.

We shouldn't be encouraging obese kids to play less, but instead to exercise more. Just like eating less chocolate won't make you thinner, but doing more exercise will.

Instead of discouragement and negative reinforcement, we should be preaching encouragement and positive reinforcement. I'm going to lay some of the blame on parents here. If they made themselves more available to assist their children in going out and spending time with their friends in RL, maybe people wouldn't spend so much time in doors online. It's about convenience. If you can make it similarly convenient for a child to go and play outside with his friends, then they will gladly do so. People who stay in doors don't have an aversion to outdoors, they are just lazy. This is why they don't do exercise, because they are lazy. So make it seem easy enough that they won't mind doing it. A lot of parents are too absorbed in their careers to actually want to put in effort to make a change in their child's life. The parents are also lazy. Do you see what I'm getting at?

We're living in a time of ultra-convenience. If your kid thinks he can come to you at any time and ask to go to a friend's house, then he is more likely to do so rather than at first believing "Dad/Mum is probably busy". Perhaps it isn't realistic to be available to go anywhere, any time, but this is a goal we should all be working towards if you actually want to make a difference.

I'm speaking from experience.