Abstract
The number of video game and eSports players is steadily rising. Since little is known about their health behavior to date, the present study examines the demographics and health behavior of video game and eSports players. In this cross-sectional study, data on demographics, health status, physical activity, nutrition, sleep, and video game usage were assessed via a web-based survey of n = 1066 players (91.9% male; 22.9 ± 5.9 years; body mass index (BMI): 24.6 ± 4.8 kg/m²) in Germany in 2018. The majority of respondents (95%) reported a good to excellent health status. Two thirds (66.9%) engaged in moderate to vigorous physical activity for more than 2.5 h/week. The average duration of sitting and sleep time was 7.7 ± 3.6 h/day and 7.1 ± 1.3 h/day, respectively. Mean fruit and vegetable consumption was 2.7 ± 1.8 portions/day. Video games were played for 24.4 ± 15.9 h/week on average. Partial Spearman correlations revealed poor positive associations of video game play time to sedentary behavior (rho = 0.15; p < 0.01) and BMI (rho = 0.11; p < 0.01), as well as a poor negative association to self-reported health status (rho = −0.14; p < 0.01). These results indicate the good subjective health of this target group. Nevertheless, the high amount of video game play time and its poor negative association to health status indicate a need for specific health promotion strategies for this target group.
Highlights
Video games and competitive gaming—what is known as eSports—in which two or more human players compete in video games with a defined set of rules [1], are becoming increasingly popular recreational activities with a growing popularity in society
We excluded 33 participants for not living in Germany, 10 for not engaging in eSports or gaming, and 13 for inconsistent data
The results show that the composition of the target group is different from the general population: In line with results from previous studies on gaming and eSports [42,43], the present sample includes predominantly young and well-educated participants
Summary
Video games and competitive gaming—what is known as eSports—in which two or more human players compete in video games with a defined set of rules [1], are becoming increasingly popular recreational activities with a growing popularity in society. Big eSports events like The International attract thousands of spectators on site and millions of viewers online from all over the world [2]. The number of eSports enthusiasts, i.e., people that play or watch eSports regularly, is estimated to be 198 million worldwide [3], the number of regular video game players is even higher [4]. While the social interest in gaming and eSports is steadily rising, academic research on those involved in the phenomenon is relatively new [5]. Among other things, on whether eSports can be considered a sport [6,7,8], on the economic scope of gaming and eSports [9,10] as well as on the psychological effects of gaming on brain function [11,12,13] and character traits [14,15,16]
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