Over half of Danish schoolboys spend their weekends glued to their computer screens while gaming, according to the child welfare report Skolebørnsundersøgelsen.

The report found that 55 percent of 13 to 15-year-olds and 52 percent of 11-year-olds spend at least four hours a day at the weekends playing computer games.

“Overweight children are a problem and we know that many children should be more active than they are, so I find it difficult to locate anything positive in the figures,” Morten Grønbæk, the head of the National Institute of Public Health at the University of Southern Denmark, told Jyllands-Posten newspaper.

“The one concern is due to the health risks, and the other aspect is the mental state, because one could discuss how socially stimulating it is to spend so many hours gaming.”

READ MORE: School kids unhappier than before

Girls game less
The report, which is published every fourth year, revealed that girls aged 11-15 spend far less time playing computer games.

Some 23 percent of 13-year-old girls spend at least four hours a day at the weekends playing computer games, while that figure falls to 20 percent for 11-year-olds and 14 percent for 15-year-olds.

The report (here in Danish) – which documents the physical health, mental health, social relations, school welfare and health behaviour of the children – also showed that more school children are unhappy now compared to before.