Overview
- Published January 15 in Nutrition, the Curtin University–led study surveyed 317 students from five Australian universities with a median age of 20.
- Participants were grouped by self-reported playtime, with health measures diverging sharply only in the group exceeding 10 hours per week.
- High gamers recorded a median BMI of 26.3 kg/m2 compared with 22.2–22.8 kg/m2 among low and moderate gamers.
- Each additional weekly hour of gaming correlated with lower diet quality even after adjustments for stress, physical activity and lifestyle factors.
- Longer gaming was linked to worse sleep, particularly with late-night play, and authors recommended breaks, earlier stop times and healthier snacks while noting limits including a cross-sectional design, self-reporting and a modest, single-country sample.