Virtual Reality, a Solution For America's Obesity Problem?
Could an attractive avatar convince you to moderate your eating style?
Let's be honest, our views on how much food we should consume are completely out of control. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 35.7 percent of U.S. adults are considered to be obese. While the trend shows that we continue to gain weight overall, there is good news coming out of the University of Missouri. Forget Weight Watchers and pills and create an athletic avatar instead.
According to Elizabeth Behm-Morawitz, assistant professor of communication in MU’s College of Arts and Science, an "alter-ego can then have a positive influence on a person’s life" and "people seeking to lose weight could create fitter avatars to help visualize themselves as slimmer and healthier."
Behm-Morawitz said that she surveyed 279 users of Second Life and found that "self-presence, or the degree to which users experienced their avatars as an extension of themselves, [will] predict the influence of the avatar on people’s physical reality." A "strong self-presence" in a virtual community "promoted health and well-being of the participants themselves" and people generally felt that an attractive avatar online made them feel better offline as well. Needless to say, that self-presence also contributed to "greater satisfaction with online relationships".
The researcher believes that this circumstance could be used in treatments targeted at helping people to lose weight. The hope is that a a positive virtual image can create the desire to reflect that image in the real world. "This study found no evidence of negative effects of a high degree of self-presence in the virtual world on study participants; however, that doesn’t rule out the possibility," Behm-Morowitz stated. "Users should practice moderation. Virtual entertainment, like other forms of diversion such as books or television, can be used in unhealthy ways."
The most obvious discredit towards this research is that in every game, the characters you play as or design are already meant to be attractive and it has never, ever curbed obesity. These characters serve to get the player to play more, rather than less. If attractive characters encouraged people to get off the computer and go outside, developers would be making ugly characters instead.
The most obvious discredit towards this research is that in every game, the characters you play as or design are already meant to be attractive and it has never, ever curbed obesity. These characters serve to get the player to play more, rather than less. If attractive characters encouraged people to get off the computer and go outside, developers would be making ugly characters instead.
Because sick people makes unproductive people, and unproductive people makes an unhealthy society.
See the Roman Empire as an example.
(Hint: It had no middle class. Much of the working people weren't working because slaves had occupied most of the jobs, and had to be fed and entertained so they wouldn't riot. It wasn't a problem until there were no more places worth plundering, then you had expenses exceeding revenue.)
They not only would have fun in this virtual world, but they could also do some real working out (As in, they could run around) and they'd be able to have fun while doing it.
Although.. I'm not sure how it would be more fun than doing the real thing unless they are playing over the net or something.
Fatties are not unproductive, maybe they're less productive than they would be if they were slimmer, but that's their business. People have no obligation to fulfill their potential. If you want to make fat people lose weight so they would be more productive, what would you do about lazy or unambitious people?
Besides, how productive is someone who spends 8 hours a day being miserable thinking about food they can't eat?
I agree with your second comment, diet is 80% of weight control. You can run for an hour on a treadmill, but it is going to help much if you eat a few donuts for breakfast. The problem is what we eat, but more importantly how much we eat.
/sarcasm
Everything but exercise and eating healthy.
+1
the only times i have lost weight are when i had the flu for a week straight i lost 10#'s or when i am not sitting on my duff and busting my arse off physically
thanks to the cloud i am going to be able to sit on my duff more and not have to get out of my chair and eat more twinkies and hoho's and drink more colas and energy drinks.!
i find it very hard to exercise with day light savings time as the only time the sun is up for 6+ months of the year is during working hours just so my employer can save some money on their electric bill and stiff us with higher electric bills as we have to get up in the dark to go to work and get home in the dark leaving no time to go on walks, mow the lawn, yard work, bicycle rides play sports rather than come home turn on the lights eat dinner and sit down in front of the boobtube.
Elizabeth Behm-Morawitz, assistant professor of communication in MU’s College of Arts and Science
Elizabeth Behm-Morawitz, assistant professor of communication in MU’s College of Arts and Science, studied how avatars can influence a person’s health and appearance.