Video-Game Couple Starves Kids

By Caroline Miller,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 15, 2007 10:34 AM CDT
Video-Game Couple Starves Kids
Dungeons and Dragons.   (tinyvi3 (YouTube))

A Reno couple obsessed with video games pleaded guilty to neglect Friday after their two children were found malnourished and near-death last month. Police said there was food in the house, but the parents, Michael and Iana Straw, played computer and video games, mostly Dungeons & Dragons, while the kids, 22 and 11 months, starved.

Michael Straw, an unemployed cashier, was said to have spent a $50,000 inheritance on computer equipment and a huge plasma TV. The case comes as the American Medical Association considered, but rejected, a proposal to designate video game addiction a mental disorder, the AP notes.
(More American Medical Association stories.)

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