Scholarly Sources

Story Immersion of Videogames for Youth Health Promotion: A Review of Literature

This is the first of two sources I plan to use. It is a study headed by health department member and health researcher as it relates to video games Amy S. Lu. Her claim in this article focuses on the concept of immersion. It defines immersion as a frame of time where the player is fully interested in the video game they are playing. In her article, she covers how immersion is commonly seen in massively multiplayer online video games where someone can play with a vast amount of others in competition. To give a few examples of what these are for reference, games like Call of Duty, Final Fantasy, World of Warcraft, and the sort. These are all big video games that are advertised regularly in stores, on the web, and on televisions worldwide. People buy these games, and play them so regularly that they will skip meals, lose track of time, and be affected on levels that the average video game shouldn’t be able to reach. I believe that this concept is definitely one of the bigger for my paper. As an avid gamer, even I’m aware that immersion exists and I’ve even gotten to the point of immersion on multiple times. Not to the extent where it’s unhealthy but, I have become very involved with the premise and fun of playing certain online video games. Immersion also leads to unhealthy eating since the player always wants to be physically playing the video game causing the player to snack rather than eat. The biggest difference is that the snacks consists of chips, soda, and the sort rather than a nutritionally balanced meal to cater to the daily needs of the average person.

Kathryn Montgomery (PhD Scholar and Video Game Researcher)

Interactive Food and Beverage Marketing: Targeting Adolescents in the Digital Age

Montgomery’s biggest points in this study and the reasons I find her a very key source for my paper are that she focuses on two points that are probably the biggest in the inefficient dietary choices by the players of video games. In her article, she pays more attention to the adolescent-teenage range of players and how they are easily influenced by the big conventions like MLG. But another point is the emphasis she puts on the players around this age looking for a sense of “identity”. One would assume, that video games have nothing to do with identity. However, even if someone doesn’t want to be a character completely they can believe that eating the same things will give some of the qualities inhabited by this character that the player idolizes.

 

I mean who wouldn’t want to be this guy right? No… that’s just me…oh… sorry.

Video Games vs. Obesity

Yes, the title isn’t a lie…I promise. You see I’ve played video games since I was around 3 years old. At that time, I was introduced to them through my mom and growing up I would play Super Mario brothers, Pac-Man, and Donkey Kong on the Super Nintendo console. This ignited my desire to play video games, which is something I still do now, 15 years later. Therefore, when it came to this research topic, my idea was, “why not think first of something you love, then connect it to food”? Basically that’s how this came about.

Thankfully, I was never this bad with my habits while gaming, but this is the problem I see involving food and video games. People too often focus on the violence of video games. However, I see a much more prevalent threat that needs to be looked at which is how video games impact the diet of the average person. Even though they don’t seem like it, video games are the ideal advertising source since so many people play video games. While many aren’t likely to believe commercials and take what they say with a grain of salt, in my experience more people believe video games. Sports games are the most commonly used video game for this product placement since everything seems more and more realistic with the progression of each year. Furthermore, many of the things the athletes eat/drink in the game are what they are actually seen doing on the television during a game. For instance, the giant Gatorade, or smaller bottles of Gatorade are always seen in video games but are what every athlete gets when they are subbed out or during a timeout. It’s practically a tradition to see this.

Thus, if one can see it in real life, it heightens the credibility of the video games that are using the same tactics to endorse other things. And in turn, video games begin to have the same persuasive power seeing the real things. Perhaps my idea is a tad farfetched in the connection I drew earlier, but I still think the power of video games on the diet is something that needs to be focused on almost as highly as people choose to focus on their violence factor.

Wait? Cooking has a gender?

Women were originally looked at as the primary stay at home workers meaning that they would do all the household tasks including cooking, cleaning, etc. However, since the intrusion of men on an act that most women used to prove their love, value, and care there have been almost divisions between who is the more dominant in this act. Somehow it is perceived that similar to any non-household job, cooking is some form of an indicator as to what gender is the better in comparison to the other. Jessamyn Neuhaus in Lady Like Lunches and Manly Meals highlights how for men there were specific guidelines that had to be followed by men to secure the “masculinity” of the hobby of cooking. Just that statement in itself shows exactly my point on how cooking is some indicator of which gender is better.

 

In the modern world, there are all these false stigmas that a man’s meal is large and thus requires more preparation and components. Women on the other hand have dainty meals of salads, fruits, etc. However, anyone who has cooked knows that this is nothing more than someone’s humorous ploy on dietary habits that has extended too long over time. If such were the case, ironically, how would one even justify deserts? A man has a cake, while a woman has a cookie? It’s just inconceivable how one can try to support such dragged out concepts that can’t be seen naturally.

 

I mean for the sake of all that is good, look at this meme. In it a man’s cooking requires something already packaged. And this person is so foreign to the act that he can't even identify that this is what the directions want him to do.

 

In this picture it baffles me because someone genuinely believes that cooking and the art of cooking is based on gender. Whether something tastes good or not has nothing to do with what kind of person made it as opposed to the culinary skill of the person who made it.

 

Now This, THIS IS BEAUTIFUL!!

 

I would dare to say that this sums it up nicely wouldn't you?