Mum pleads for son, 15, to be diagnosed with ‘online gaming addiction’ by NHS after revealing he has been out of school for a YEAR
Teen developed vitamin D deficiency after spending hundreds of hours indoors glued to the screen
A TEENAGE boy is set to be diagnosed with an online gaming addiction in what is believed to be the first case of its kind on the NHS.
The 15-year-old has reportedly been off school for a year while spending hundreds of hours on computer game binges in his north London home.
He spent so much time without sunlight he developed a vitamin D deficiency and had to be given pills.
His condition will now be recognised and treated by the NHS following a three-year campaign by his mother Kendal Parmar,
The news comes just months after the World Health Organisation classified internet gaming as an official mental health disorder.
The mother-of-five said: “Every moment he’s awake, he wants to be on a game. There is no outside world. It has become all-consuming.
“The biggest effect on our family is the isolation from us all. He is estranged within our own house. We have lost him...although we know he is in there.”
She says she has tried everything to break her son's relationship with gaming, even hiding his devices and using numerous parental control devices.
She described internet gaming as a “silent addiction” which is often overlooked because it does not disrupt society in the same way drug or alcohol addiction.
Miss Parmar thinks he is attracted to the sociability of gaming because you can play with lots of other people, as well as the buzz when he achieves in the virtual world.
Game plan: What is Fortnite and why is it so popular?
FORTNITE: Battle Royale is a version of Fortnite, a video game released by Epic Games in July 2017.
The online game is set in an post-apocalyptic world, based around a battle for survival.
Fortnite offers two distinct modes: player versus environment, 'Save the World' and the more recent player versus player game Battle Royale.
The game starts with 100 players leaping out of a plane on to a small island, fighting each other until no one is left.
Fortnite has proved a massive hit with millions of kids.
The game is free and kids can team up with a friend, a group of friends or compete as a duo or squad.
Matches can last up to 20 minutes.
Though it's a multiplayer shooter, no graphic violence is depicted.
But he finds ways of getting around her restrictions or acts aggressively to get what he wants, she told The Telegraph.
It comes as a nine-year-old girl is in rehab after getting so addicted to online video game Fortnite she wet herself rather than leave the screen.
The hooked youngster played all night until dawn after her parents had gone to bed — and hit her dad in the face when he confiscated her Xbox.
She kept nodding off at school, began skipping gym and ballet classes and running up £50 bills with Microsoft buying extras for the free-to-download survival shooter game. Her parents eventually put her into therapy — two months after buying her the Xbox — to help wean her off the fight-to-death scenarios.
Mum Carol, 36, said: "We had no idea of the addictive impact it could have. She became withdrawn, agitated and disturbed from playing up to ten hours a day wetting herself so she didn't have to leave the screen."
Addictions counsellor Steve Pope has been treating the girl. He said dozens of parents had contacted him in the past two months over their kids being addicted to Fortnite, played by 40million. He said: "I've never seen anything like it."
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