Yes, the title was a bit misleading, but it was what I could think up for this article. Deal with it. :) But that doesn't make this latest study any less interesting for the world of gaming, especially for online gaming. Since this is where most of the test data came from.
This study was pulled out of about 7000 people on EverQuest servers. At least partly. From the test group, a majority of them where 30 year olds as compared to what was expected of being more amongst 20 somethings. Also interesting out of this is the fact that there is only about 20% of these to be female. Not to odd except for the fact that these 20% seem to be more aggressive players in general comparative.
Continuing on with the study, a separate study has shown that gamers exercise much more than your average American. Like working out "vigorously" once or twice a week compared to the 10 minutes on average for the others. On top of that, Gamers are about 10% leaner than your average American. Not to shabby for us. Helps to keep that stereo-type of gamers down and out.
Unfortunately, given these interesting positive health stats, there is a not so good mental health stat for us gamers. Like the fact that we are 50% more likely to be diagnosed with depression. Also 20% more likely to devolve into some form or substance abuse and addiction. There are no links directly correlating to what kind of games cause these stats, just games in general. Personally I think it links to the facade of Social Interaction leading people to think they are socially active, only to find out that they are not as much. Makes me think if I should go get myself checked for some form of mental issue now.
