Validity of assessing child feeding with virtual reality

Unhealthy Food and Beverage Marketing to Children in the Digital Age: Global Research and Policy Challenges and Priorities

Food and nonalcoholic beverage marketing is implicated in poor diet and obesity in children. The rapid growth and proliferation of digital marketing has resulted in dramatic changes to advertising practices and children's exposure. The constantly evolving and data-driven nature of digital food marketing presents substantial challenges for researchers seeking to quantify the impact on children and for policymakers tasked with designing and implementing restrictive policies. We outline the latest evidence on children's experience of the contemporary digital food marketing ecosystem, conceptual frameworks guiding digital food marketing research, the impact of digital food marketing on dietary outcomes, and the methods used to determine impact, and we consider the key research and policy challenges and priorities for the field. Recent methodological and policy developments represent opportunities to apply novel and innovative solutions to address this complex issue, which could drive meaningful improvements in children's dietary health.

Assessment of a virtual sensory laboratory for consumer sensory evaluations

As technology advances in the field of food sciences, the sensory experience of food consumption remains complex and influenced by various factors. Traditional consumer testing, often conducted in isolated booth environments, presents challenges in terms of construct validity and user engagement for perception formation. The growing accessibility and sophistication of virtual reality (VR) technology offer a promising avenue for research. This study focuses on the assessment of a virtual sensory laboratory, seamlessly integrating traditional sensory practices into the virtual realm to explore disparities in consumer responses, especially in sensory analysis. The virtual laboratory, designed for compatibility with VR gear, closely resembles a sensory booth. The virtual environment enables the researchers to change the visual clues of the products being tested as well as the surroundings (e.g., colors, furniture, or even the environment). Additionally, the level of immersion can be enhanced by playing any type of music, if needed. One crucial question is to assess the opinions of the participants, if they feel comfortable in the created environment. Specific participant numbers are omitted, and the study engages participants. The success of this initiative could signify a substantial advance in analysis and cost savings, adding a layer of significance to the study's potential impact on optimizing research practices. The study lays the groundwork for optimal VR practices and anticipates further exploration with immersive elements to deepen our understanding of how virtual reality influences consumer behaviour in food selection compared to traditional sensory methods.

Portion size affects food selection in an immersive virtual reality buffet and is related to measured intake in laboratory meals varying in portion size

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.

Examining the exposure-reception-retention link in realistic communication environments via VR and eye-tracking: The VR billboard paradigm

Exposure is key to message effects. No effects can ensue if a health, political, or commercial message is not noticed. Yet, existing research in communication, advertising, and related disciplines often measures 'opportunities for exposure' at an aggregate level, whereas knowing whether recipients were 'actually exposed' to a message requires a micro-level approach. Micro-level research, on the other hand, focuses on message processing and retention, takes place under highly controlled laboratory conditions with forced message exposure, and largely ignores how recipients attend selectively to messages under more natural conditions. Eye-tracking enables us to assess actual exposure, but its previous applications were restricted to screen-based reading paradigms lacking ecological validity or field studies that suffer from limited experimental control. Our solution is to measure eye-tracking within an immersive VR environment that creates the message delivery and reception context. Specifically, we simulate a car ride down a highway alongside which billboards are placed. The VR headset (HP Omnicept Pro) provides an interactive 3D view of the environment and holds a seamlessly integrated binocular eye tracker that records the drivers' gaze and detects all fixations on the billboards. This allows us to quantify the nexus between exposure and reception rigorously, and to link our measures to subsequent memory, i.e., whether messages were remembered, forgotten, or not even encoded. An empirical study shows that incidental memory for messages differs based on participants' gaze behavior while passing the billboards. The study further shows how an experimental manipulation of attentional demands directly impacts drivers' gaze behavior and memory. We discuss the large potential of this paradigm to quantify exposure and message reception in realistic communication environments and the equally promising applications in new media contexts (e.g., the Metaverse).

Effect of perceptive enrichment on the efficiency of simulated contexts: Comparing virtual reality and immersive room settings

This study was designed within the methodological framework of sensory and consumer sciences, where conventionally internal and external validity are approached separately (e.g. CLT vs HUT). Here is explored the added value of new immersive strategies, such as virtual reality, on their ability to achieve both: internal and external validity. This article presents a comparative study between different experimental setups, involving more than 270 consumers. Two different immersive setups were appraised, simulating the consumption episode 'eating a sandwich for lunch in a park': a context room (N = 57) and a VR environment (N = 55). We added two control conditions: a real park in summer (N = 56) and scenario-only in sensory booths (duplicated condition, N1 = 59, N2 = 52). A set of sandwiches were evaluated in a between-participants design, with one duplicated recipe for a reliability assessment. Participants evaluated samples on hedonic criteria and closed the experiment with a questionnaire measuring their level of immersion. After classification of the questionnaire variables, seven underlying dimensions were identified, with significant differences between conditions on the credibility of the environment and the scenario. As expected, with strong external validity, the simulated environments were more immersive than the conventional booth with scenario and less immersive than a real-life environment. Although the immersive conditions did not stand out from the other conditions on the product evaluation performance, all the conditions revealed a high level of internal validity. Mean scores and rankings of the products, participants' repeatability and discriminatory power remained comparable to the real park environment indices.

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 &lt; 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 &lt; 0.05). This study demonstrates the feasibility of conducting an unsupervised remote iVR experiment using a complex and interactive health-related iVR app.

Cybersickness Variability by Race: Findings From 6 Studies and a Mini Meta-analysis

Background

With the influx of medical virtual reality (VR) technologies, cybersickness has transitioned from a nuisance experienced during leisure activities to a potential safety and efficacy concern for patients and clinicians. To improve health equity, it is important to understand any potential differences in cybersickness propensity among demographic groups, including racial groups.

Objective

This study aims to explore whether cybersickness propensity differs across racial groups.

Methods

We collected self-reported cybersickness ratings from 6 racially diverse independent samples within 1 laboratory group (N=931). In these studies, the participants were asked to perform tasks in VR such as traversing environments, pointing at and selecting objects, and interacting with virtual humans.

Results

Significant racial differences in cybersickness were found in 50% (3/6) of studies. A mini meta-analysis revealed that, on average, Black participants reported approximately one-third of SD less cybersickness than White participants (Cohen d=−0.31; P<.001), regardless of the nature of the VR experience. There was no overall difference in reported cybersickness between the Asian and White participants (Cohen d=−0.11; P=.51).

Conclusions

Racial differences in cybersickness indicate that researchers, practitioners, and regulators should consider patient demographics when evaluating VR health intervention outcomes. These findings lay the groundwork for future studies that may explore racial differences in cybersickness directly.

A narrative review of the impact of digital immersive technology on affective and sensory responses during product testing in digital eating contexts

The environments and/or contexts typically used to determine consumer affective and sensory responses have been questioned for their ecological validity. However, conducting consumer testing in real-life scenarios is costly, logistically complex, and hard to standardise between participants due to a lack of control over external cues and product preparation. Immersive environments, representative of product consumption contexts, may provide more ecologically valid data. Recently, digital immersion technologies have been proposed to contextualise consumer studies whilst maintaining experimental control. This narrative review summarised published consumer studies including digital immersion in addition to traditional sensory booths and/or a real-life immersive contexts in their study design, to measure the impact of these contexts on liking, emotional response and intensity of sensory attributes. The findings suggest that emotional response ratings are more comparable to real-life, and that consumer engagement and reliability increases, when testing is conducted using digital immersive techniques compared to traditional sensory booths. Therefore, digital immersive techniques look promising to improve ecological validity of consumer testing, but further development and research is required.

Getting started with virtual reality for sensory and consumer science: Current practices and future perspectives

While virtual reality (VR) has become increasingly popular in food-related research, there has been a lack of clarity, precision, and guidelines regarding what exactly constitutes a virtual reality study, as well as the options available to the researcher for designing and implementing it. This review provides a practical guide for sensory and consumer scientists interested in exploring the emerging opportunities offered by VR. We take a deep dive into the components that make up a VR study, including hardware, software, and response measurement methods, all the while being grounded in immersion and presence theory. We then review how these building blocks are put together to create two major categories of research scenarios: product selection, which can be entirely created in VR, and food evaluation, which involve tasting products in real life. For each category, we review current literature with a focus on experimental design, then highlight future avenues and technical development opportunities within sensory and consumer research. Finally, we evaluate limitations and ethical issues in VR food research, and offer future perspectives which go above and beyond ensuring ecological validity in product testing.

Parental reward-based eating drive predicts parents' feeding behaviors and Children's ultra-processed food intake

Reward-based eating drive is associated with individual consumption, but there has been a paucity of research on the relationships between parental reward-based eating, child feeding behaviors, and child food consumption. Child feeding behaviors likely to be associated with parental reward-based eating drive include the provision of ultra-processed foods, as they are designed to be hyperpalatable and are associated with disordered food intake. The present study uses a virtual reality (VR) buffet restaurant environment to examine parents' food choice behaviors for their children and a food frequency assessment to measure the children's reported consumption over the course of a week. Results found that parental reward-based eating drive significantly predicted ultra-processed calories chosen by parents for their children in the VR Buffet, as well as the amount of ultra-processed food children ate according to the food frequency assessment. Both of these effects were significantly mediated by the healthfulness of the home food environment. This study is among the first to demonstrate associations between parental reward-based eating drive and child-focused food behavior and to elucidate a mediating effect of the home food environment on such relationships. These findings may be useful for the development of family-based interventions to improve child feeding and ultimately child health.

Virtual Reality as a Tool to Study the Influence of the Eating Environment on Eating Behavior: A Feasibility Study

In this manuscript, we describe a new approach to study the effect of the eating environment on food intake and eating behavior using virtual reality technology. Fifteen adults consumed pizza rolls in two virtual reality (VR) environments: a restaurant and a table in an empty room. The participants' food intake, eating parameters (e.g., masticatory parameters and eating rate), and their sensory evaluation of the test food was measured. The participants' sense of presence (the feeling of being in the virtual environment) and markers of arousal were also measured. There was no statistical significant difference in food intake or the sensory evaluation of the test food. In the restaurant condition, participants used fewer masticatory cycles before swallowing but there was no effect on eating rate or maximum bite force. Participants experienced a greater sense of presence when they were in the pizza restaurant scene. Moreover, their heart rate and skin temperature were higher in the restaurant condition. This study suggests that VR could be developed as a new tool to study the effect of the eating environment on food intake and eating behavior.

A Dash of Virtual Milk: Altering Product Color in Virtual Reality Influences Flavor Perception of Cold-Brew Coffee

It is well known that the appearance of food, particularly its color, can influence flavor perception and identification. However, food studies involving the manipulation of product color face inevitable limitations, from extrinsic flavors introduced by food coloring to the cost in development time and resources in order to produce different product variants. One solution lies in modern virtual reality (VR) technology, which has become increasingly accessible, sophisticated, and widespread over the past years. In the present study, we investigated whether making a coffee look milkier in a VR environment can alter its perceived flavor and liking. Thirty-two United Kingdom (UK) consumers were given four samples of black cold brew coffee at 4 and 8% sucrose concentration. They wore VR headsets throughout the study and viewed the same coffee in a virtual setting. The color of the beverage was manipulated in VR, such that participants saw either a dark brown or light brown liquid as they sipped the coffee. A full factorial design was used so that each participant tasted each sweetness x color combination, Participants reported sweetness, creaminess, and liking for each sample. Results revealed that beverage color as viewed in VR significantly influenced perceived creaminess, with the light brown coffee rated to be creamier than dark brown coffee. However, beverage color did not influence perceived sweetness or liking. The present study supports the role of VR as a means of conducting food perception studies, either to gain a better understanding of multisensory integration, or, from an industry perspective, to enable rapid product testing when it may be time-intensive or costly to produce the same range of products in the real-world. Furthermore, it opens potential future opportunities for VR to promote healthy eating behavior by manipulating the visual appearance of foods.

Parents' genetic attributions for children's eating behaviors: Relationships with beliefs, emotions, and food choice behavior

Considering genetic influences on children's eating behavior could result in reduced self-efficacy for healthy child feeding and less healthy feeding behavior among parents. Indeed, one's eating behaviors are typically thought of as the volitional aspects of weight management that one can directly control. The current study assessed parental genetic attributions for their child's eating behavior, and relationships between these attributions and self-efficacy, guilt, and feeding behaviors. Participants included 190 parents of a child between 4 and 7 years old. Parents' genetic attributions for child eating behaviors were lower than genetic attributions related to child weight. Higher genetic attributions for child eating behaviors were related to lower self-efficacy for feeding the right amounts of food, higher-calorie food choices for the child in a virtual reality-based buffet simulation, and higher levels of guilt. The current findings suggest that heightened beliefs about role of genetics in children's eating behavior is associated with maladaptive affect and behavior among parents. This should be kept in mind when considering whether, when, and how to provide information to parents highlighting the role of genetics in children's eating behavior.

Investigating the Efficacy of Genetic, Environmental, and Multifactorial Risk Information When Communicating Obesity Risk to Parents of Young Children

BACKGROUND

Effectively communicating with parents about children's obesity risk is of critical importance for preventive medicine and public health.

PURPOSE

The current study investigates the efficacy of communications focused on two primary causes of obesity: genes and environment.

METHODS

We compared parental feeding responses to messages focused on (i) genetics alone, (ii) family environment alone, (iii) genetics-family environment interaction (G × FE), and (iv) no causal message. We also examined whether parental guilt mediates the effect of message type on feeding. Our sample consisted of 190 parents, half mothers and half fathers, of children 3-7 years old. After receiving one of the four types of messages, parents chose foods for their child using the Virtual Reality Buffet measure. Parents responded to questionnaires in the lab and at 1-week follow-up.

RESULTS

In the VR Buffet, parents did not feed their children differently in message provision conditions versus control. There were, however, differences among message provision conditions wherein mothers who received any genetic information chose higher-calorie meals in the VR Buffet. At 1-week follow-up, parents who received information about genetics alone reported feeding their child more junk food and fatty meat on self-report food frequency assessments; there were no such differences for sugary beverages, sugary foods, or fast foods. Parental guilt was typically higher for participants who received family environment information alone but did not mediate the relation between information provision and feeding outcomes.

CONCLUSIONS

While none of the messages improved feeding above the control condition, GxFE messages were associated with a better overall profile of outcomes. As such, it may be beneficial for messaging for parents about children's obesity risk to include content that reflects the complexity of genetic and environmental contributions to obesity risk.

Usability Study of a Novel Tool: The Virtual Cafeteria in Nutrition Education

OBJECTIVE

This study aimed to evaluate the usability of the virtual cafeteria (VC) and determine its suitability for further studies in portion size education and rehabilitation of nutrition.

METHODS

The study was conducted with 73 participants (aged 18-40 years). The VC, where the participants performed the task of assembling a meal, was created as a virtual reality simulation of a buffet-style cafeteria (94 food and 10 beverage items). The participants were asked to complete the System Usability Scale, which regards ≥70 points as acceptable, and to give comments about the VC.

RESULTS

The mean System Usability Scale score was 79.4 ± 12.71 (range, 22.2-97.2). Approximately 68% of the participants described positive qualities for the VC. The participants with technical background reported the VC as more usable (96%) than the others (74%) (χ² = 5,378; df = 1, P = 0.025).

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

Offered as a novel tool for education and rehabilitation of nutrition, the VC was confirmed to feature good usability.

Olfactory Perception and Presence in a Virtual Reality Food Environment

Virtual reality (VR)'s effectiveness as a medium for training, education, research, entertainment and other uses is based on the fact that users can be deeply immersed and feel present within virtual environments. Olfaction has received less attention regarding its ability to add realism to VR environments. It is important to investigate under which circumstances olfactory stimuli are likely to add to user experience and help achieve the goals of VR applications. This study examined the role of scent in a VR-based buffet restaurant environment. French fry scented oil was administered while participants made a plate of food in the VR Buffet. Participants were asked afterwards to report on smells they perceived. Only 18% of participants perceived the olfactory stimulus, 78% of whom correctly identified it. Perceiving the olfactory stimulus was associated with higher levels of presence in the VR Buffet. Correctly identifying the olfactory stimulus was associated with heightened presence and increased likelihood of choosing french fries from the VR Buffet. These results demonstrate the potential for variability in scent perception and related user experience in VR. Additionally, this study highlights a need for future research into factors that underlie and moderate olfactory perception in VR environments.

Effects of Fruit and Vegetable Feeding Messages on Mothers and Fathers: Interactions Between Emotional State and Health Message Framing

BACKGROUND

There is a pressing need to craft optimal public health messages promoting healthy feeding behaviors among parents. How these messages influence such feeding decisions are affected by multiple interactive factors including emotional states, message framing, and gender, but these factors have not been studied in the domain of parents' feeding of their children.

PURPOSE

To evaluate the role of message framing, emotional state, and parent gender on feeding choices that parents make for their children.

METHODS

In 2016-2017, 190 parents (126 mothers) of 4- to 7-year-old children were randomly assigned to an anger or fear emotion induction and read either a gain- or loss-framed message about the importance of children's fruit and vegetable (FV) consumption prior to choosing foods for their child from a virtual reality buffet.

RESULTS

Mothers in an angry state who received a gain-framed message chose relatively more FV for their child in the virtual buffet, F(3, 180) = 4.77, p = .027. However, fathers in this group did not feed more FV, but rather reported greater intention to improve future FV feeding, F(3, 180) = 4.91, p = .028.

CONCLUSIONS

Providing gain-framed messages to parents, particularly mothers, in an anger state may be most effective for motivating healthy dietary choices for children.

CLINICAL TRIAL INFORMATION

clinicaltrials.gov NCT02622035.

Advancing science and practice using immersive virtual reality: what behavioral medicine has to offer

Interest in immersive virtual reality (VR) technologies is burgeoning as the hardware becomes less costly and more accessible to users, including researchers and practitioners. This commentary outlines the field of immersive VR and highlights applications of its use relevant to translational behavioral medicine. We describe the challenges facing VR applications for health and medicine, and how the core strengths of behavioral medicine can advance theory, research, and practice using VR. By highlighting potential uses of immersive VR alongside the challenges facing the field, we hope to inspire researchers to apply robust theories, methods, and frameworks to generate stronger evidence about the feasibility, acceptability, efficacy, and effectiveness of using this technology in translational behavioral medicine.

Descriptive Normative Nutrition Messages to Maximize Effect in a Videogame: Narrative Review

Messages containing descriptive norms have been manipulated and tested for effects on dietary intake in a number of studies. The effects have been mostly small or nonexistent. This narrative review analyzed the structural elements of the nutrition messages most likely related to effectiveness. Elements examined included the following: source, similarity of source to the participant, reference group, identification with or evaluative significance of the reference group, delivery, salience, background, tailoring, gain-loss framing, and whether an assessment of the group norm was conducted before designing the descriptive norm message. Most studies incorporated few of the reviewed structural elements, and message manipulations appeared weak. Controlled, systematic studies are needed to examine the effect of the structural elements, singly and in combination, on behavior and its mediators. Videogames are designed to be delivered in the same way to players; therefore, they offer a controlled environment for extensively and systematically manipulating structural elements of messages and examining the resulting behavioral effects. How this might be accomplished was described. Experimental research was identified as being necessary to delineate the individual and combined element effects, thereby contributing to the body of literature on videogame design and effectiveness.

A Virtual Home for the Virtual Clinical Trial

Virtual clinical trials (VCTs) can satisfy the need for rigorous clinical trials by using distributed technological solutions that eliminate the need for a physical trial site. This report explores potential benefits of using virtual reality (VR) to provide a "virtual site" for VCTs, a shared immersive hub in which VCT participants could experience elements of the trial and interact with the trial team. VR is a communication technology that has been emerging alongside the development of VCTs, although they have never been merged in a substantial way. Many of the gaps within the VCT paradigm are areas in which VR excels. VR environments are standardized and precisely uniform, the technology allows introduction of an almost endless set of stimuli to participants' visual and auditory systems, and VR systems are adept at capturing precise movement and behavioral data. Although VR has not yet found its way into VCTs, much of the groundwork for such integration has been laid through research and technological development achieved in the past few years. Future implementation of VR within VCTs could move us from site-less trials to those with a virtual site serving as a hub for trial information provision, interaction with trial representatives, administration of evaluations and assessments, and more.

Association of parental guilt with harmful versus healthful eating and feeding from a virtual reality buffet

OBJECTIVE

Parents often report guilt about what they feed their child, but no studies have examined how this guilt might affect their child-feeding or own eating behavior. Some studies suggest that guilt motivates healthy behaviors, yet others show that guilt impairs the self-control needed to abstain from unhealthy behaviors.

METHOD

One hundred ninety parents reported how guilty they felt about their current child-feeding habits. Parents then chose food for their child in a virtual reality buffet and reported their intentions to improve child-feeding and own eating behavior in the future. Finally, parents were offered candy while they completed an unrelated survey.

RESULTS

Parents with greater guilt reported stronger intentions to improve both feeding (b = .27, p = .010) and eating (b = .21, p = .019) in the future. However, among parents with higher (but not lower) BMI, those who reported greater guilt served more unhealthy foods for their child in the buffet (b = .32, p = .010) and were more likely to eat candy at the end of the study (b = .92, p = .004). Further analyses revealed that guilt only predicted greater feeding intentions when parents had served relatively more unhealthy foods in the buffet (b = .43, p < .001).

CONCLUSIONS

Findings echo the mixed conceptualization of guilt shown in previous literature on health behavior. More research is necessary to understand the long-term influence of guilt on eating and feeding behavior and the circumstances under which guilt is associated with detrimental versus healthy behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Path Tortuosity in Virtual Reality: A Novel Approach for Quantifying Behavioral Process in a Food Choice Context

There is a pressing need to better understand how parents make feeding decisions for their children, but extant measures focus primarily on outcomes rather than examining the process of food choice as it unfolds. This exploratory study examined parents' translational movement as they moved throughout a virtual reality-based buffet restaurant to select a lunch for their child. Our aim was to explore whether translational movement would be related to cognitive and affective variables that underlie motivation, effort, and ultimate choices within food decision-making contexts (e.g., guilt, self-efficacy). Movement data were quantified in terms of path tortuosity: the degree of straightness of one's path while traveling through a space. Greater path tortuosity predicted a reduction in parents' guilt about their child feeding, above and beyond actual food chosen. Results suggest path tortuosity serves as an implicit measure of effort put forth by parents throughout the food decision-making process. Future work should continue to explore the utility of novel metrics that can be obtained from unique data sources, such as location tracking, for elucidating complicated behavioral processes such as food choice.

A Virtual Reality Food Court to Study Meal Choices in Youth: Design and Assessment of Usability

Background

Regular consumption of take-out and fast foods with sugary drinks is associated with poor quality diets and higher prevalence of obesity. Among the settings where such food is consumed is the food court typically found in shopping malls prominent in many countries.

Objective

The objective of this research was to develop a virtual reality food court that could be used to test food environmental interventions, such as taxation, and ultimately to facilitate the selection of healthier food choices.

Methods

Fourteen food courts in Sydney, Australia were selected to include those in the city center and suburbs of high and low socioeconomic status. Researchers visited the courts to collect information on number and type of food outlets, all menu items for sale, cost of foods and beverages and sales promotions. This information was used to assemble 14 food outlets typically found in food courts, and representative menus were compiled. The UNITY gaming platform was used to design a virtual reality food court that could be used with HTC VIVE goggles. Participants navigated the virtual reality food court using the head-mounted display, keyboard, and mouse and selected a lunch meal, including food and beverage. A validated questionnaire on presence within the virtual reality food court and system usability was completed at the end of the session. The constructs for presence included a sense of control, sensory fidelity, realism, distraction, and involvement. Questions were rated on a scale from 1 (worst) through 7 (best) for each of 28 questions giving a maximum total score of 196. The systems usability scale (SUS) that gives a final score out of 100 was also assessed.

Results

One hundred and sixty-two participants with a mean age of 22.5 (SD 3.1) years completed the survey. The mean score for total presence was 144 (SE 1.4) consisting of control: 62.1 (SE 0.8), realism: 17.5 (SE 0.2), involvement: 9.6 (SE 0.2), sensory fidelity: 34.9 (SE 0.4), and distraction: 24.0 (SE 0.3). The mean SUS was 69 (SE 1.1).

Conclusions

Virtual reality shows promise as a tool to study food choice for test interventions to inform practice and policy.