In a speech to the American Medical Association, President Obama listed video games as health concern — a challenge to Entertainment Software Administration president Mike Gallagher's statement that the Obama administration was game-friendly.
The Wall Street Journal has the full text of the speech, but there's really only one part that even mentions video games:
The second step that we can all agree on is to invest more in preventive care so that we can avoid illness and disease in the first place. That starts with each of us taking more responsibility for our health and the health of our children. It means quitting smoking, going in for that mammogram or colon cancer screening. It means going for a run or hitting the gym, and raising our children to step away from the video games and spend more time playing outside.
It's far from an alarmist cry about the evils of Grand Theft Auto or sex scenes in Mass Effect, but the statement does sort of contradict Gallagher's assertion made at an E3 luncheon that video games "represent zero issues" for the White House. Gallagher says the ESA is doing a good job of entertaining American families, but maybe that's the president's problem: they just do too good a job.
And maybe that's why the president owns a Wii, not an Xbox 360. You move around a lot during Wii Sports bowling, right?
Obama Names Video Games as Health Concern in Speech to A.M.A. [GamePolitics]