Video games, sedentary lifestyle lead to obesity.(Knight Ridder Newspapers)

"Oftentimes, the problem begins with Gameboy."

So says my good friend and adviser, pediatrician C. Ellis Fisher of Gastonia, N.C. "Whenever a child brings one of those nefarious things into the examining room, I take the parent aside and give her The Talk."

We were discussing the problem of childhood obesity, which is fast becoming a major public health issue. Thirteen percent of young children (6-11) are obese, and 14 percent of adolescents (12-19) are obese. Not just overweight, folks, but obese. These figures represent a two-fold increase for children and a three-fold increase for adolescents since 1980.

And yes, the problem can begin with Gameboy, which I, along with a growing number of researchers believe is addictive, no less so than heroin (and if anecdotal accounts are trustworthy, as difficult to detox). As Gameboy, or another video game device, becomes an obsession, then an addiction, the child becomes increasingly inert.

Weight gain follows, which makes it more difficult for him to be active, and a potentially dangerous cascade begins. Video games are not the sole culprit, of course. The activity level of the American child has been considerably reduced over the last 40 years by television, computers and the car.

Indeed, more children are involved in organized after-school sports today than was the case a generation ago. But even these children are not getting the activity they would get if they simply came home from school, changed clothes, and rode their bikes around the neighborhood in search of pickup games, where no one sits on a bench. My elementary school physical education class made us sweat. We had to take showers afterwards. Since then, school-based physical education programs have been "dumbed down" in response to politically correct concerns over winning and losing. No sweat there.

After school and on weekends, my parents let me run the neighborhood, burning calories in the process, romping with my friends. Because of media-fed concern/hysteria over child abduction, many of today's parents would rather their kids stay in the house watching television or playing Gameboy.