Source: http://www.joystiq.com/2007/06/16/gamin ... elf-image/Posted Jun 16th 2007 5:30PM by Alexander Sliwinski
Filed under: Culture
A study to be published in the journal Body Image this summer shows signs that boys who read video game magazines have an increased desire for muscle mass compared to boys who read Highlights or something like that. The study examined 181 boys and found that those who read game magazines had a greater desire for muscle mass. The study found that the 104 African American boys studied did not have the same result, which the researchers believed was because of the lack of black characters in game magazines.
The reason the clear distinction is made between game magazines and actual video games is because the pictures in magazines are "characters [that] are drawn with extreme muscularity and much more realism than in video games themselves." Looks like the the video game magazines are screwing up boys like Seventeen and Cosmopolitan have been messing with girls for years. Sure, sure, we can poke holes in the study all day, but it is interesting to think how many more waxed super muscled characters in video games exist like Dante, Kratos and Guile; than there are "real men" like Dead Rising's Frank West with his chest hair, love handles and average build.
I used to want to be as muscular as goku from Dragonball, but I lack the will power to lift weights on a daily basis. Video games characters these days are very muscular like Cloud from FF7, and RYU from street fighter. There seem to be fewer round overweight characters like mario, kirby, & wario these days.