Content analysis of food and beverage marketing in global esports: Sponsorships of the premier events, leagues, teams and players

Background Food marketing has been implicated as a driving force of the obesity epidemic. Electronic sports, or ‘esports’, garners billions of viewership hours and is a consolidation of two major marketing outlets, online social media and sporting events, making it a focal point for food marketers and policy-makers. Methods The top 10 esports events and leagues were identified using data scraped between 1 January 2021 and 15 December 2021. The 10 teams within each league (90 total teams) and up to 10 players from each team (451 total players) were identified. Of the top 10 events and leagues, 6 events and 2 leagues were held or located outside the USA, reflecting the global popularity of esports. Food and beverage brands associated with each event, league, team or player were systematically identified and extracted via official websites and social media accounts. The number of sponsorships was totalled for each brand. Brands were then categorised based on product type into the following categories: energy drinks, sugar-sweetened beverages, alcohol, candy/snacks, restaurants, food delivery and stores, and supplements. The total number of brand sponsorships was then calculated for each product category. Results 90 unique food and beverage brands were identified. Across all brands, a total of 497 food brand sponsorships were identified. For product categories, energy drink brands had the most sponsorships (181 sponsorships, 36.4%), followed by restaurants (86 sponsorships, 17.3%) and candy/snacks (64 sponsorships, 12.8%). The individual brand with the most sponsorships was Monster Energy (47 sponsorships, 9.4%), followed by Jack Links (44 sponsorships, 8.8%) and Red Bull (42 sponsorships, 8.4%). Conclusion Despite its nascent character, the esports industry is already heavily saturated by food and beverage marketing. There is a need to consider policies to appropriately regulate food and beverage marketing within esports communities to safeguard the health of viewers

The food and beverage cues in digital marketing model: special considerations of social media, gaming, and livestreaming environments for food marketing and eating behavior research.

Digital marketing to children, teens, and adults contributes to substantial exposure to cues and persuasive messages that drive the overconsumption of energy dense foods and sugary beverages. Previous food marketing research has focused on traditional media, but less is known about how marketing techniques translate within digital platforms, such as social media, livestreaming, and gaming. Building upon previous theories and models, we propose a new model entitled food and beverage cues in digital marketing (FBCDM). The FBCDM model specifies key marking elements and marketing integration strategies that are common on digital platforms and are hypothesized to enhance the effects of advertising and incentive sensitization process. FBCDM also categorizes measurable outcomes into three domains that include brand, food, and social outcomes. Additionally, repeated marketing exposure and the resulting outcomes are hypothesized to have long term consequences related to consumer markets, consumption behavior, culture, and health. We include a discussion of what is currently known about digital marketing exposure within the outcome domains, and we highlight gaps in research including the long-term consequences of digital marketing exposure. The FBCDM model provides a conceptual framework to guide future research to examine the digital marketing of food and beverages to children and adolescents in order to inform government and industry policies that restrict the aggressive marketing of products associated with obesity and adverse diet related outcomes

The development of an immersive mixed-reality application to improve the ecological validity of eating and sensory behavior research

Introduction: The modern eating environment has been implicated as a driving force of the obesity epidemic. Mixed reality applications may improve traditional methodological assessments of eating behavior by improving the ecological validity of the laboratory setting. Methods: Research experts evaluated the utility and ecological validity of a mixed reality application that allowed immersion within virtual environments through utilizing the passthrough cameras of the head mounted display to view and interact with real foods. An initial evaluation was conducted that involved three virtual environments: a traditional laboratory booth, a non-textured restaurant, and a full-textured restaurant. The feedback from the initial evaluation was used to create a new virtual restaurant environment and a subsequent evaluation was conducted. Results: Nearly all research experts suggested adding social cues such as people and background noise to create a more authentic and ecologically valid experience. The experts scored the new virtual restaurant environment to be more acceptable than eating or conducting research in a sensory booth but scored lower when compared to conducting research in a real-world restaurant setting. Discussion: The results of this evaluation suggest that mixed reality applications may be a new methodology to assess environmental influences of eating behavior and may be a promising direction for eating behavior and sensory science research

Association between regional brain volumes and BMI z-score change over one year in children.

PurposeAssociations between brain region volume and weight status have been observed in children cross-sectionally. However, it is unclear if differences in brain region volume precede weight gain.MethodsTwo high-quality structural brain images were obtained approximately one year apart in 53 children aged 9-12 years old. Children's height and weight were also measured at each scan. Structural images were processed using the FreeSurfer software-package providing volume measures for regions of interest including the entorhinal cortex, nucleus accumbens, and hippocampus. Age- and sex-adjusted BMI z-scores (BMIz) were calculated at both timepoints. The association between brain region volume and BMIz was examined cross-sectionally using linear regression and longitudinally using structural equation modeling. All models were adjusted by estimated cranial volume to account for individual variation in head size and were corrected for multiple comparisons (pFDRResultsThe sample of children was primarily healthy weight at baseline (79.78%). Cross-sectionally at the one-year follow-up, a positive relationship was observed between right hippocampal volume and BMIz (β = 0.43, 95% CI = (0.10, 0.77)). Longitudinally a negative relationship was observed between right entorhinal volume at baseline and BMIz at the one-year follow-up (β = -0.25, 95% CI = (-0.44, -0.07)).ConclusionThese results suggest that measured volumes from certain regions of the brain that have been associated with BMI in adults are associated with both concurrent BMIz and BMIz change over one-year in a primarily healthy weight sample of children. As the entorhinal cortex integrates signals from both reward and control regions, this region may be particularly important to weight management during child development

What Is Food Noise? A Conceptual Model of Food Cue Reactivity

As GLP-1 receptor agonists, like semaglutide, emerge as effective treatments for weight management, anecdotal reports from patients and clinicians alike point to a reduction in what has been colloquially termed “food noise”, as patients report experiencing less rumination and obsessive preoccupation about food. In this narrative review, we discuss concepts used in studies to investigate human eating behavior that can help elucidate and define food noise, particularly food cue reactivity. We propose a conceptual model that summarizes the main factors that have been shown to determine the magnitude of the reactivity elicited by external and internal food cues and how these factors can affect short- and long-term behavioral and clinical outcomes. By integrating key research conducted in this field, the Cue–Influencer–Reactivity–Outcome (CIRO) model of food cue reactivity provides a framework that can be used in future research to design studies and interpret findings related to food noise and food cue reactivity

Corrigendum: Remote iVR for nutrition education: from design to evaluation

ISSN:2624-989

Remote iVR for Nutrition Education: From Design to Evaluation

While different crowdsourcing platforms promote remote data collection, experiments in the immersive Virtual Reality (iVR) research community are predominantly performed in person. The COVID-19 pandemic, however, has forced researchers in different disciplines, including iVR, to seriously consider remote studies. In this paper, we present a remote study using the Immersive Virtual Alimentation and Nutrition (IVAN) application, designed to educate users about food-energy density and portion size control. We report on the results of a remote experiment with 45 users using the IVAN app. In IVAN, users actively construct knowledge about energy density by manipulating virtual food items, and explore the concept of portion size control through hypothesis testing and assembling virtual meals in iVR. To explore the feasibility of conducting remote iVR studies using an interactive health-related application for nutrition education, two conditions were devised (interactive vs. passive). The results demonstrate the feasibility of conducting remote iVR studies using health-related applications. Furthermore, the results also indicate that regardless of level of interactivity learners significantly improved their knowledge about portion size control after using the IVAN (p < 0.0001). Adding interactivity, however, suggests that the perceived learning experience of users could be partially affected. Learners reported significantly higher scores for immediacy of control in the interactive condition compared to those in the passive condition (p < 0.05). This study demonstrates the feasibility of conducting an unsupervised remote iVR experiment using a complex and interactive health-related iVR app

Data_Sheet_1_The development of an immersive mixed-reality application to improve the ecological validity of eating and sensory behavior research.docx

IntroductionThe modern eating environment has been implicated as a driving force of the obesity epidemic. Mixed reality applications may improve traditional methodological assessments of eating behavior by improving the ecological validity of the laboratory setting.MethodsResearch experts evaluated the utility and ecological validity of a mixed reality application that allowed immersion within virtual environments through utilizing the passthrough cameras of the head mounted display to view and interact with real foods. An initial evaluation was conducted that involved three virtual environments: a traditional laboratory booth, a non-textured restaurant, and a full-textured restaurant. The feedback from the initial evaluation was used to create a new virtual restaurant environment and a subsequent evaluation was conducted.ResultsNearly all research experts suggested adding social cues such as people and background noise to create a more authentic and ecologically valid experience. The experts scored the new virtual restaurant environment to be more acceptable than eating or conducting research in a sensory booth but scored lower when compared to conducting research in a real-world restaurant setting.DiscussionThe results of this evaluation suggest that mixed reality applications may be a new methodology to assess environmental influences of eating behavior and may be a promising direction for eating behavior and sensory science research.</p