Paper Information
| Title | Eat M Up! Studying the Link between Game Experience and Eating Behaviour |
| Presenter(s) | Karolien Poels, Yvonne de Kort and Wijnand IJsselsteijn |
| Session | Games and Physical Health |
| Time | Thursday, October 9, 10:45a-11:45p |
| Location | Parlor A |
| Format | Paper Presentation |
| Description | Playing games is often associated with unhealthy eating habits like meal skipping and consuming high calorie snacks. Online players are repeatedly huddled behind their PC with soft drinks and snacks to help them through long sessions of game play. Social gaming often takes place with friends hanging on the couch while consuming beer, and eating chips. Related to this, researchers have proposed the "couch-potato" hypothesis that connects electronic media use with obesity and overweight. According to this hypothesis, both TV viewing and playing digital games replace active leisure time and facilitate a sedentary lifestyle leading to an increase in obesity and overweight. To date, most empirical evidence in this area is based on large scale surveys linking a media use variable (e.g. daily hours of gaming) to an eating (e.g. amount of snacks a day) or weight (e.g. BMI) related variable.
In the present study we examined the relation between playing digital games and eating behaviour in a lab setting. We specifically focused on the interplay between game experience or emotions evoked during game play and eating behaviour. The objectives were twofold. First, we wanted to investigate how having the possibility to eat contributes to the game experience. Second, we wanted to test how specific game experiences (e.g. pleasure, immersion, boredom) and specific game events (e.g. winning vs. losing) are related to eating behaviour. |
| More | View extended abstract |