Forget Food! Chinese Kids Want Virtual Gaming Loot, Instead

According to a population study done by Nanjing Normal University and published by Tencent, over 33% of Chinese junior high students in the Nanjing area are willing to go hungry in the morning so that they can purchase items for online games.

In their study, Nanjing University surveyed over 1,200 junior high, high school, and college students on their regular living habits. Led by Professor Huang Rulong the Nanjing University study looked at the various living habits of students. The purpose was to find out if any social and living habits are adversely affecting student health both physically and psychologically.

After six months of investigating, Huang’s report showed that generally most students don’t eat breakfast.

“At least 13 percent of high school students surveyed said they don’t eat breakfast,” said Huang. “These are students in the peak growth period, and did not eat breakfast, which is very detrimental to their health.”

Digging deeper into the reasoning why the children didn’t eat breakfast, Huang found that some students received breakfast money from their parents but chose to save it so that they maybe able to purchase gear for online games.

One child interviewed by Tencent named Li Haoyu, said that his father would give him 10 RMB ($1.15 US) daily for breakfast. Instead of buying breakfast, Li said he would save the money to purchase equipment for his game characters. Li says he often goes to school hungry.

Another portion of the survey dealt with sleep deprivation and Huang’s survey showed that not only are many high school students not eating breakfast, a lot are also sleep deprived. Due to their heavy academic work load and the immense preparation needed for the Chinese College Entrance Exam many Chinese students also suffer from a lack of sleep.

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Despite all of this amount of data accumulated by the Nanjing Normal University, Professor Huang’s only advice to students and parents is that they should make their child eat breakfast. He doesn’t provide a solution to the whole not eating breakfast to buy games thing. His only advice is for the kids to eat .

调查称40%中学生不好好吃早饭 省钱买游戏装备 [Tencent]

(Top photo: Morgan Lane Photography | Shutterstock)