The massive media coverage in recent years of poor health due to over-eating and under-exercising is no match for the even more massive advertising budget of professional sports. If you thought that the NFL were a sports league you would be wrong; it is actually a major TV channel. And the editorial side of the Wall Street Journal has been suckered in.

Hopefully games of touch football or flag football among youths are still getting them off the couch and away from their electronic devices. But it appears that they would rather play the Madden NFL electronic game on a gadget than the real thing on a green field. But this only exercises their fingers. And it’s not just the teen-aged boys who are exercising their fingers rather than their legs. Grown men are playing so much fantasy football on their laptops that it has been estimated there is an annual $13 billion productivity loss in America.