AMA meeting: AMA concerned about video games' impact on youth

Chicago -- The video game rating system needs to be improved to allow parents to know why games receive the ratings they do and to lead to informed decision-making about which ones their children will be permitted to use, according to a report from the AMA's Council on Science and Public Health. These recommendations were adopted as policy at last month's Annual Meeting.

"We would like to see a ratings system that better alerts parents to the content of the video game and recommended age of the player, so they can decide whether or not their child should be playing it," said AMA President Ronald M. Davis, MD.

About 70% to 90% of those younger than 18 play video games. In response to studies suggesting that this activity can increase aggression in the short term and suspicions that it may contribute to the obesity epidemic, the AMA wants to increase awareness of the need to monitor and restrict video game and Internet use among children and adolescents. The organization also wants to encourage research into the long-term impact, both good and bad, and a determination of safe limits for screen time.

"The recognition of this as a problem by the medical community is only in its infancy, and the research follows rather than precedes recognition that something is a problem," said Thomas Allen, MD, a psychiatrist from Towson, Md., speaking for MedChi, the Maryland State Medical Society.

The report, however, stopped short of urging that Internet and video game addiction be included as a formal category in the revised Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Rather, the AMA document will be forwarded for consideration to the American Psychiatric Assn. and other specialty societies involved in the revision.

"There's nothing here saying that this is a complex physiologic disease state akin to alcoholism or other substance use disorders, so it doesn't get to have the word 'addiction' attached to it," said New York psychiatrist Stuart Gitlow, MD, MPH, representing the American Society of Addiction Medicine.

But while video game and Internet overuse are not being categorized as addictions, the organization also took several actions to reduce access to substances that could lead to addiction. The AMA reiterated support for legislation to give the Food and Drug Administration authority over tobacco and stated that physicians and health organizations should not use smoking cessation materials produced by the tobacco industry.

On the subject of alcohol, the organization called for a ban on the marketing of alcohol-containing products that have a strong appeal for those younger than 21, such as alcohol energy drinks or alcopops. The AMA also announced support for efforts to communicate that substance use disorder is a potentially lethal as well as treatable disease and one that may be prevented with education.