OBJECTIVE:To compare the impact of a nutrition education program delivered in person and within an immersive virtual reality (iVR) nutrition education experience application called immersive virtual alimentation and nutrition (IVAN). To compare IVAN with its updated version, IVAN 2, and develop a portion size estimation task for use within iVR. DESIGN:Two randomized controlled experiments. SETTING:Laboratory. PARTICIPANTS:Ninety-two adults (aged 29 ± 14) years) enrolled. In experiment 1, 25 adults were randomized to in-person and 20 to the IVAN condition. In experiment 2, 25 adults were randomized to IVAN 1, and 22 adults were randomized to IVAN 2 conditions. INTERVENTION:Nutrition education materials delivered in person by IVAN 1 and IVAN 2. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES:Changes in portion control self-efficacy and portion-size overestimation. ANALYSIS:Linear mixed-effects models and t tests. RESULTS:In experiment 1, the portion size self-efficacy improved for both conditions (B = 2.40; SE = 0.61; P <0.001) with no difference between conditions. In experiment 2, the portion size self-efficacy improved for both conditions (B = 1.23; SE = 0.55; P = 0.03), as did the portion-size overestimation value (B = -21.51; SE = 4.97; P <0.001), with no difference between conditions. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS:Portion-size education material shows similar efficacy delivered through IVAN and in person. The efficacy of IVAN 2 was higher than IVAN 1. Portion size estimation tasks within iVR may be useful for the assessment of participants' ability to estimate portion sizes.

This randomized controlled trial assessed the comparative effectiveness of a biochemistry education program delivered through an immersive virtual reality (iVR) experience and traditional video-based instruction. Undergraduate students enrolled in three nutrition courses from a large R1 American university participated (n = 95). Students were randomly assigned to either an iVR condition (n = 48) or a video condition (n = 47). Students either viewed a nutritional biochemistry video or participated in an interactive iVR nutritional biochemistry experience. Nutritional biochemistry quiz scores improved, with a significant difference between the video condition and iVR condition (P = 0.05). Engagement scores were higher for the iVR (mean = 4.60) compared to the video (mean = 4.33; p = 0.02). Additionally, the total heuristic evaluation was higher for the iVR group compared with the video group (p = 0.01). Delivery of biochemistry education materials through iVR technology was shown to be more engaging than traditional video-based instruction.

BackgroundFood 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.MethodsThe 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.Results90 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%).ConclusionDespite 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.

Live streaming is a rapidly growing source of digital entertainment that presents a unique opportunity for food brands to reach young audiences. Streamers, or content creators, use influencer-based marketing strategies to promote food brands and model eating behaviors. Adolescents are vulnerable to these types of marketing practices due to increased saliency of social influence, which presents health implications as most of the marketed food products are high in fat, salt, and sugar. In a randomized crossover design, a sample of 72 adolescents, 12–19 years of age, viewed two simulated live stream videos with imbedded marketing for a food and nonfood product. A bowl of chips was offered during the viewing, and the amount consumed was measured. Using a mixed effects model, no main effect of marketing condition was found on snack intake. A significant effect of External Food Cue Responsiveness scores on snack intake was found, with higher scores showing greater intake in both conditions. Significant interactions between condition and age, the Three Factor Eating Questionnaire–cognitive restraint subscale, and the TFEQ–emotional eating subscale were found. These results demonstrate possible individual differences that determine food intake outcomes in response to food marketing exposure.

This study assessed the multifaceted relations between measures of workload, psychological state, and recovery throughout an entire soccer season in female collegiate soccer athletes (19.8±1.2 yrs, 132±12.3 lbs, 63±3.2 in). A prospective longitudinal study was utilized to measure workload (GPS training load, Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE), psychological state (mental stress, mental fatigue, and mood), and recovery (sleep duration, sleep quality, and soreness), during 90 observations (59 training sessions and 21 games). Separate linear-mixed effect models were used to assess outcomes of RPE, soreness, and sleep duration. A linear mixed-effects model explained 59% of the variance in RPE following each session. Specifically, each standard deviation increase in GPS load and mental stress in the morning prior to training increased RPE by 1.46 (SE=0.08) and 0.29 (SE=0.07), respectively, following that day's training. Furthermore, a significant interaction was found between several predictor variables and chronological day in the season while predicting RPE. Specifically, for each standard deviation increase in GPS load, RPE went up by 0.0055 per day during the season suggesting that load had a higher impact on RPE as the season progressed. In contrast, the interaction of day by mental stress, sleep duration, and soreness continued to be stronger as the season progressed. Each linear mixed-effect model predicted a larger amount of variance when accounting for individual variations in the random effects.

A crucial step for validating the utility of an immersive virtual reality (iVR) buffet to study eating behavior is to determine whether variations in food characteristics such as portion size (PS) are relevant predictors of food selection in an iVR buffet. We tested whether manipulating PS in an iVR buffet affects the weight of food selected, and whether this response to PS is similar to participants' measured intake when PS varies at laboratory meals. In a randomized crossover design, 91 adults (18-71 y; 64 females; BMI = 25.3 ± 5.7) used their iVR remote to select lunch and dinner portions from an iVR buffet before consuming a standardized lab meal at two visits separated by one week. The PS in the iVR buffet and lab meals varied between a standard PS and a large PS. This design enabled comparisons of PS effects between iVR and lab settings, despite the scale difference in food weight between the environments. Portion size significantly affected food selection and food intake (p < 0.001). Subjects selected an additional 350 g in iVR and consumed an additional 154 g of food in the lab meals when offered the large portion compared to the small portion. The effect of PS showed a similar percentage increase in iVR (36.5%) and lab meals (39.2%). There was no significant difference in the effect of PS between iVR and lab meals after accounting for scale differences in food weight between the environments. The response to PS was not influenced by subject characteristics such as body mass index, sex, or age. These results demonstrate the utility of iVR for replicating real-world eating behaviors and enhancing our understanding of the intricate dynamics of food-related behaviors in a variety of contexts.

COPYRIGHT © 2023 Sajjadi, Edwards, Zhao, Fatemi, Long, Klippel and Masterson. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. Corrigendum: Remote iVR for nutrition education: from design to evaluation

OBJECTIVE:To assess viewer engagement of a food advertising campaign on the live streaming platform Twitch.tv, a social media platform that allows creators to live stream content and communicate with their audience in real time. DESIGN:Observational analysis of chat comments across the Twitch platform containing the word 'Wendy's' or 'Wendys' during a 5-day ad campaign compared with two 5-day non-campaign time periods. Comments were categorised as positive, negative or neutral in how their sentiment pertained to the brand Wendy's. SETTING:Twitch chatrooms. PARTICIPANTS:None. RESULTS:There were significantly more chatroom messages related to the Wendy's brand during the campaign period. When considering all messages, the proportion of messages was statistically different (x2 = 1417·41, P < 0·001) across time periods, with a higher proportion of neutral and positive messages and a lower proportion of negative messages during the campaign compared with the comparison periods. Additionally, the proportion of negative messages following the campaign was lower than before the campaign. When considering only positive and negative messages, the proportion of messages was statistically different (x2 = 366·38, P < 0·001) across each time period with a higher proportion of positive messages and a lower proportion of negative messages during the campaign when compared with the other time periods. Additionally, there was a higher proportion of positive messages and a lower portion of negative messages following the campaign when compared with before the campaign. CONCLUSIONS:This study demonstrates the impact and sustained impact of a fast-food brand ad campaign on brand engagement on the live streaming platform Twitch.

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.

Objective: To compare and evaluate the prevalence of food and beverage marketing on the livestreaming platforms Twitch, Facebook Gaming, and YouTube Gaming, as well as examine growth of food and beverage marketing on these platforms over a 17-month period of data collection.Design: Cross-sectional data was analyzed across three livestreaming platforms and six food and beverage categories: alcohol, candy, energy drinks, snacks, sodas, and restaurants.Setting: Stream titles of livestreamed events as well as corresponding hours watched on Twitch, Facebook Gaming, and YouTube Gaming.Participants: NoneResults: There were significant differences between food and beverage brand mentions across all three studied platforms (p<0.05), as well as hours watched (p<0.05). Energy drinks dominated food and beverage brand mentions across platforms, followed by restaurants, soda, and snacks. All platforms demonstrated growth over the 17-month data collection period. Post-hoc analyses revealed that the COVID-19 pandemic impacted both immediate and sustained growth across all platforms, with the greatest impact observed on the Twitch platform.Conclusions: Food and beverage marketing as measured through stream titles is widely prevalent across the three most popular livestreaming platforms, particularly for energy drinks. Food marketing on these platforms experienced growth over the past 17-months which was accelerated substantially by the COVID-19 pandemic. Future work should assess the sustained impact this growth may have on marketing practices and eating behavior.

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.

This research textbook, designed for young Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) researchers beginning their careers, surveys the research models and methods in use today and offers a general framework to bring together the disparate concepts. HCI spans many disciplines and professions, including information science, applied psychology, computer science, informatics, software engineering and social science making it difficult for newcomers to get a good overview of the field and the available approaches. The book's rigorous 'approach-and-framework' response is to the challenge of retaining growth and diversification in HCI research by building up a general framework from approaches for Innovation, Art, Craft, Applied, Science and Engineering. This general framework is compared with other HCI frameworks and theories for completeness and coherence, all within a historical perspective of dissemination success. Readers can use this as a model to design and assess their own research frameworks and theories against those reported in the literature.