Harry Potter has been accused of many things – like distorting Christianity, turning children onto witchcraft and generally being a bit dull – but it turns out that Harry Potter can save children’s lives.
Kind of. Doctors at John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford noticed that the number of children admitted to casualty each time a new Harry Potter book came out dropped. But don’t think that Harry Potter is some kind of special saviour – the doctors also noted that Harry Potter might make kids fat.
2005 was the year of Harry Potter (DVDs). Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince was released and sold 38 trillion copies to all kinds of children and weird adults, all of whom cried when Dumbledore died. And Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire single-handedly resurrected the US box office, taking more money on its opening weekend than the rest of the top ten put together – even getting beamed into space at one point.
But, as well as making J K Rowling enough money to be able to
legally change the name of every living creature on Earth to J K
Rowling Is Really Brilliant And Harry Potter Isn’t Shit, it turns out
that Harry Potter is actually helping to make children’s lives safer.
According to the BBC:
Doctors at John
Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford looked at
the number of children attending casualty on weekends when Harry Potter
books were launched. They found that only 36 children needed treatment
compared with an average of 67 children on other weekends.
Which
is strange, because we spent the launch weekends of both Harry Potter And
The Order Of The Phoenix and Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince
dashing around pushing over all kinds of children who were walking
around blindly reading Harry Potter books. And slamming the books shut
on their noses. We’ll try harder next time. The authors of the study
hypothesised thus:
"It may.. be hypothesised that there is a place for a
committee of safety conscious, talented writers who could produce high
quality books for the purpose of injury prevention."
So
look forward to next, safety conscious, Harry Potter book to hit the
shelves: Harry Potter And The Tale Of How Running With Scissors Or
Climbing Trees Or Jabbing A Knife Repeatedly Into A Plugged-In Toaster
Is Bad.
But it’s not all good news for Harry Potter fans. Because Harry
Potter makes you fat. The study also claims that kids who read books
might suffer from:
"an unpredictable increase in childhood obesity, rickets and loss of cardiovascular fitness".
Read more:
Reading ‘cuts childhood injuries’ – BBC
[story by Stuart Heritage]