"38 percent of female game characters had large breasts and 46 percent had unusually small waists," the group said in a news release announcing its findings.
Altogether, 54 percent of the female characters were depicted as fighting or being violent, while many also exhibited stereotypical female behavior and characteristics.
Almost half of the top-selling U.S. console video games contain "unhealthy" messages for girls, including unrealistic body images, provocative sexuality and violent behavior, according to a new study. "IT'S NOT A pretty picture of women. It's a very distorted picture," said Lois Salisbury, president of Children Now, an Oakland, Calif-based child advocacy organization which commissioned the study. "Children in America are consuming an hour-and-1/2 per day, on average, of online activity or video games. That's a steady diet, and it's an increasing proportion of their media diet," Salisbury said.
"The unhealthy messages that both girls and boys absorb from these new media impact the way they think girls are supposed to look and act,".While the Children Now study said the games' negative female imagery delivers the wrong message about female behavior to both boys and girls, Salisbury said the study was more concerned about the girls since they are apt to identify with the female characters.
"There is an interactivity, there is an absorption, and the children who are playing are actually assuming different characters. ... That does a lot for identity formation".