Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Serious Games
Date Submitted: Dec 4, 2017
Open Peer Review Period: Dec 4, 2017 - Jan 25, 2018
Date Accepted: Apr 3, 2018
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Physical Wellness Among Gaming Adults: Cross-Sectional Study
ABSTRACT
Background:
Video and hobby gaming are immensely popular among adults; however, associations between gaming and health have primarily been investigated in children and adolescents. Furthermore, most research has focused on electronic gaming, despite traditional hobby gaming gaining prominence.
Objective:
To determine whether the number of platforms used, platform preference, and gaming time are associated with obesity, physical activity, sedentary behavior, and cardiovascular risk factors in an adult gaming population.
Methods:
We conducted a cross-sectional analysis using data obtained from 292 participants who attended a large Midwestern gaming convention. We collected data using a computer-based questionnaire that comprised questions on gaming behavior, demographics, physical activity (using the International Physical Activity Questionnaire), and health characteristics. In addition, we used multivariable-adjusted linear and logistic regression to model health outcomes as a function of the number of platforms used, platform preference, and weekday and weekend gaming time quartile.
Results:
After adjusting for covariates, we observed a significant linear trend for increasing odds of being obese and higher weekend sitting time by the number of platforms used (P=.03 for both). The platform preference and weekend gaming time quartile exhibited significant associations with odds of meeting physical activity recommendations (P=.047 and P=.03, respectively). In addition, we observed higher odds of being obese among those reporting that they sat most or all of the time while gaming [odds ratio (OR) 2.69 (95% CI 1.14-6.31) and OR 2.71 (95% CI 1.06-6.93), respectively].
Conclusions:
In adult gamers, the number of platforms used, which platforms they prefer to play on, and the amount of time spent gaming on weekends could have significant implications for their odds of being obese and meeting physical activity recommendations.
Citation
Per the author's request the PDF is not available.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.