"Be like Mike."

Okay, but what about, "Be like Wes"? (For Wes Cwiklo, America's videogame superstar.)

There is no doubt that the United States has a significant national problem in obesity. With increasing numbers of overweight children and teens, obesity is becoming a serious issue.

Of course, as with most any serious issue, our nation's weight problem has a "lighter side" — at least in the minds of some. And why shouldn't it?

It's easy to poke fun at the problem — comedian Jay Leno's "fat jokes" almost always get a good laugh from The Tonight Show audience, including those audience members who are overweight.

"Ironic" is probably not the right word, but it is at least interesting to think that every night across America, thousands of Tonight Show viewers sit on couches with snacks and drinks in hand, laughing at Leno's fat jokes while gaining weight themselves.

I won't say I've never done that, but I will say this:

Until Americans come to terms with the real causes of the nation's growing weight problem, it will only get worse.

Largely, the nation has dealt with obesity by pointing the finger of blame at corporations and organizations, pursuing frivolous lawsuits and looking for easy solutions to circumvent real solutions — usually while sitting down, I'll bet.

The great majority of people can control body weight by altering diet and activity level. There are some notable exceptions, including people with certain medical conditions, but in general, the healthier one's diet and higher one's activity level, the healthier one's weight.

Despite these two means of weight management, the fight against obesity has really only zeroed in on one of them: diet — or food — and the companies and people who make it.

McDonald's and other fast food corporations have taken a beating. New York City has banned trans fats from the city's restaurants. School lunch menus have been called into question time and time again.

While some of these moves have been unfair to restaurateurs and other purveyors of food, there is no arguing that any effective approach to the obesity problem must address the dietary options available to Americans.

This is fine, but what about the "activity level" part?

What about the phase-out of physical education and even recess in some of our public schools? What about the ever-decreasing necessity of physical activity in the workplace? What about all the mega-screen HD/CD/DLP televisions purchased to make couch-potatoing that much more like doing something in real life?

As it turns out, the distinction between doing something in real life and watching something get done on a screen is getting blurrier every day, and the implications for obesity could be significant.

This past Thursday brought the World Cyber Games (WCG) Grand Final to Seattle. The WCG is a gaming competition in its seventh year that pits the world's best video game players against one another in competition for cash prizes, medals and gaming reputation.

The WCG has been termed "the Olympics of e-sports," according to MSNBC. National competitions in each of the competitor countries select the best players to send to the international Games.

The competition even has major sponsorship from such corporations as Microsoft, Samsung and Circuit City.

And for the first time in history, part of this year's competition will be nationally televised. Cable network Spike TV will air specials on the competition this Friday and again Nov. 9.

Michael Arzt, director of International Cyber Marketing in the United States, welcomes the new attention. In an interview with MSNBC, Arzt said he hopes this year's coverage will set a precedent for more widespread coverage of "e-sports" events in the future.

I hope he's wrong.

I've got no qualms with gamers, but I shudder to imagine the day that sitting on a couch watching a screen showing other people sitting on a couch watching a screen is a popular form of entertainment for kids, and considered a sport at that.

I would not imply that gamers are more obese than average, necessarily, but the gaming lifestyle is a sedentary one, and if gaming begins to take a share of the sports entertainment market, we may see the day when instead of joining little league teams and aspiring to "be like Mike" (basketball legend, Michael Jordan), some kids sit in front game consoles all day emulating gaming superstar Cwiklo.

Keeping gaming competitions like the WCG off the air will of not solve the obesity problem, but the point remains: If we truly want to reverse the trend toward obesity, especially in children, we must consider all sides of the problem, including physical activity level, which has largely been neglected to this point.

Perhaps the next frivolous obesity lawsuit can be redirected from McDonald's to Microsoft, for building software and machines that support video games (and sponsoring the WCG).

[Reach columnist Andrew Brown at opinion@thedaily.washington.edu.]