Sociable desires and gendered commitments: Video gaming and food in everyday life

Abstract

Food consumption in video gaming culture has been linked to convenience, nutritionally poor food, and unconventional eating norms. However, little attention has been given to video gaming and food interactions in mundane settings. This article explores how video gaming and food practices compete for time and attention in everyday life. We use theories of practice approach and data from a qualitative study on young Danish adults who frequently play video games. The findings suggest the competition between video gaming and food is decided by the practice that best realizes the desire to be sociable and gendered commitments to healthiness and housekeeping. We discuss the sociable appeal of video gaming over extensive performances of cooking and eating in relation to the individualization of daily social encounters and interrogate the conventional perceptions of food in video gaming culture in the context of inattention to gender differentiation.

Full text

university of copenhagen
Sociable desires and gendered commitments: Video gaming and food in everyday life
Jensen, Kristian H.; Skelly, Thomas AM
Published in:
Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies
DOI:
10.1177/13548565241270868
Publication date:
2024
Document version
Peer reviewed version
Document license:
Unspecified
Citation for published version (APA):
Jensen, K. H., & Skelly, T. AM. (2024). Sociable desires and gendered commitments: Video gaming and food in
everyday life. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies.
https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565241270868
Download date: 26. aug.. 2024

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Sociable desires and gendered commitments:
Video gaming and food in everyday life
Kristian Haulund Jensen*
Department of Psychology and Behavioural Sciences – Centre for Alcohol and Drug
Research, Aarhus University, Tuborgvej 164, 7210 Copenhagen NV, Denmark. Email:
khj.crf@psy.au.dk
Aarhus University, Denmark
Thomas A.M. Skelly
Department of Food and Resource Economics
University of Copenhagen, Denmark
*Corresponding author
ABSTRACT
Food consumption in video gaming culture has been linked to convenience, nutritionally
poor food, and unconventional eating norms. However, little attention has been given to
video gaming and food interactions in mundane settings. This article explores how video
gaming and food practices compete for time and attention in everyday life. We use a theories
of practice approach and data from a qualitative study on young Danish adults who
frequently play video games. The findings suggest the competition between video gaming
and food is decided by the practice that best realizes the desire to be sociable and gendered
commitments to healthiness and housekeeping. We discuss the sociable appeal of video
gaming over extensive performances of cooking and eating in relation to the
individualization of daily social encounters and interrogate the conventional perceptions of
food in video gaming culture in the context of inattention to gender differentiation.
Keywords: Video Gaming; Food; Gender; Everyday life; Practice theory

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1. Introducon
Popular portrayals of food consumed in video gaming culture suggest high intakes of
convenience foods, soft drinks, and ultra-processed snacks. A discourse of a “video gaming
junk food culture” has also manifested in scientific research, as health, nutrition, and obesity
are used as backdrops for investigating associations between video game play and food
intake (Chaput et al., 2011; Falbe et al., 2014; Kracht et al., 2020; Krarup et al., 2022; Krarup
and Krarup, 2020; Moore and Morrell, 2022; Tabares-Tabares et al., 2022; Turel et al.,
2017). This is corroborated by a review of the foodstuffs observed in the literature on food
and gaming, which are almost exclusively junk foods (Joelsson et al., 2023). The link
between video gaming and poor food content is not the only voiced concern. Eating norms
have also been posed threatened by video gaming, such as speculations about how excessive
play can lead to missing meals (Hussain and Griffiths, 2009) or how higher video game
playtime is associated with more frequent meal skipping and hasty eating (Cemelli et al.,
2016; Van den Bulck and Eggermont, 2006).
However, qualitative research implies time spent on video gaming may be a problematic
measurement for inferring about video gaming’s prey on other daily activities, as gamers
manage their video gaming sessions according to conventional social time (Majamäki and
Hellman, 2016). Video gaming is rarely just ‘playing video games’, but often blended with
other activities, such as streaming, commuting, or even cooking (Crawford et al., 2011;
Author's own 1). Qualitative research about video gaming and food interactions has mainly
been conducted at LAN parties (Cronin and McCarthy, 2011a; Joelsson et al., 2023; Law,
2020). LAN parties refer to events in which a high-speed Local Area Network (LAN) is
used for people to play together while being physically co-present (Jansz and Martens,
2005). Using LAN parties as the empirical basis for understanding video gaming and food
interactions risks creating simplified perceptions of how food is consumed in the context of

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video gaming. Jansz and Martens (2005: 350) argue “the sociality of LAN gaming is of a
masculine kind” with reference to the predominant role of competitive multiplayer video
games, preferences for which are gendered (Thorhauge and Gregersen, 2019). In addition,
LAN parties are not representative of contemporary video gaming due to the affordances of
post-2000s video gaming being increasingly mobile and cloud-based. With reference to
food, we contend LAN parties function as social gaming ceremonies where foods need to
symbolize celebration and hedonism. In short, LAN parties show little about food in a
general “video gaming culture” insofar as the aim is to generate knowledge about how video
gaming and food interact in everyday settings.
This article responds to Joelsson et al's. (2023:18) call “for future studies to produce a wider
understanding of the multifaceted nature of gamers’ food culture.”. In this article, we
contribute to the research on contemporary media and food interactions by asking how video
gaming and food practices compete for time and attention in everyday life. In doing so, we
challenge the presumption of a video gaming culture detached from broader trends in
societal food culture, such as the increased consumption of food prepared by commercial
outlets or the individualization of household arrangements (Holm et al., 2016; Yates and
Warde, 2017). Additionally, we contend that both video gaming and food practices are
entrenched in the practice plenum that constitutes everyday life. As emphasized by
Meriläinen (2022:1682) “The player needs to eat and sleep, engage with family members
and friends, work, study, relax and so on, and these rhythms are matched to the rhythm of
games.”. Video gaming practices do not unfold in isolation.
In this article we draw upon individual diary-interviews and focus groups with young
Danish adults aged 20-30 years who have moved away from home and who frequently play
video games. We use a theories of practice approach (Reckwitz, 2002; Shove et al., 2012;
Warde, 2014) as the theoretical framework.

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2. Exisng research on video gaming and food
In popular culture, video gaming has been linked to ‘poor’ food consumption, as the gamer
stereotype has been presented as lazy and overweight (Kowert et al., 2012), and with affinity
for junk foods (Cronin and McCarthy, 2011a; Joelsson et al., 2023). This perception is also
common in scientific studies, and links between video gaming and obesity (Kracht et al.,
2020) often appear as motivations for research on this topic. As Joelsson et al. (2023) point
out, the existing research on video gaming and food is saturated with the narrative of the
“Junk Food Gamer.”
Existing research on video gaming and food can be divided into three categories. First,
research on the association between video game playing and food quality. This category
contains quantitative studies focusing on associations between video game play time and
the consumption of beverages, snacks, and foods with low nutritional quality. One study
finds gamers’ food behaviors are similar to those of the general population (Soffner et al.,
2023). Other studies’ results point to positive associations between frequent video gaming
and increased consumption of foods and snacks with low nutritional quality (Cemelli et al.,
2016; Falbe et al., 2014; Luomala et al., 2017; Moore and Morrell, 2022; Turel et al., 2017)
and increased frequency of meal skipping and hasty eating (Van den Bulck and Eggermont,
2006).
Second, research on the effects of sedentary video game play on food intake. A study
comparing the effects of violent and non-violent video games on food intake finds no
differences between the genres of video games (Wells et al., 2022). A highly cited study by
Chaput et al. (2011) finds that 1-hour video game sessions lead to increased food intake
without increased subjective sensations of hunger and appetite. In a systematic review of
the effect of screen use on food intake, Tabares-Tabares et al. (2022) found that in three out

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of four studies that included video gaming, TV viewing is associated with higher food intake
than video gaming (Tabares-Tabares et al., 2022: 8).
Third, research that examines food consumption during social gaming events, such as LAN
parties. These studies suggest two main qualities are attributed to food in video gaming
culture. First, food symbolically marks the hedonistic nature of video gaming rituals that
sustain social bonds among gamers (Cronin and McCarthy, 2011a; Law, 2020). Second,
foods need to be compatible with the practical demands of video gaming and fuel gamers
with energy to prolong the duration of and minimize interruptions to their gaming sessions
(Cronin and McCarthy, 2011b, 2012; Jonsson and Verhagen, 2011a, 2011b). As implied by
Cronin and McCarthy (2011b), these qualities render ready-made meals, ultra-processed
savory snacks, confectionery, energy drinks, and soft drinks attractive to gamers, as they
afford them with few temporal disruptions and cater to symbolic and gustatory gratification.
From a medical perspective, Krarup et al. (2022) investigates biosignals from gamers’ food
and drink consumption in a simulated LAN event over a 42-hour period. Joelsson et al.
(2023) conducted a notable study in this regard. Their ethnographic study at two LAN-
parties in Finland finds energy drinks, candy bars, and convenience foods to be abundant,
yet also shows how gamers experience this category of food to contrast their everyday home
food. Gamers posit LAN parties as special events accompanied by hedonistic food
consumption, not representative of their regular food consumption (Joelsson et al., 2023:
13–15).
With reference to the first two categories of research, we contend that video game playtime
and structured video game playing sessions as measurements of ‘gaming engagement’ pose
issues for inferring links between video gaming and food interactions. As some scholars
have argued, video gaming culture is composed of activities, communities, social
interactions, bodily engagements, and symbolic meanings that go vastly beyond ‘playing

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video games’ (Nardi, 2015; Roig et al., 2009; Skelly et al., 2023). This article leans on this
understanding of video gaming culture. We understand ‘culture’ as the discursive, tacit, and
embodied know-how necessary to engage in socially recognized practices and assign
meaning to them. We do not posit video gaming culture to be internally coherent, but
contend across its diversity in practices, there are items, symbols and activities that are
recognizable as ‘video gaming’ to individuals who are engaged in video gaming. This loose
understanding of video gaming culture means we do not draw lines between different video
game genres or platforms and their accompanied practices. Depictions of food in video
gaming culture reflect practices specific to LAN-parties of which ‘hardcore video games’
(Juul, 2009) such as first-person-shooter games are common (Jansz and Martens, 2005).
Yet, video games can also be ‘casual’ and afford less attention-demanding video gaming
practices (Keogh and Richardson, 2018) than conventional perceptions of food in video
gaming culture indicate. From this, we find it fruitful to account for video games that cater
to both committed and casual engagements in our conceptualization of video gaming
culture.
The latter category of research has contributed to insights into the role of food in video
gaming culture, yet the findings show a lot about food in “LAN culture” and less about
video gaming and food in everyday life. Contemporary video gaming rarely occurs through
LAN-parties
i
; therefore, using LAN-parties as evidence of common interactions between
video gaming and food likely reflects empirical irregularities.
3. Theories of pracce and pracce compeon
To investigate how video gaming and food practices compete for time and attention in
everyday life, theories of practice are deployed as the analytical framework. Theories of
practice is a catch-all term for theories that address ‘practices’ as their analytical unit. Taking
a theories of practice approach entails that the consumption of video games and the

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consumption of food are understood as ‘practice’. In general, practices are coordinated
entities of sayings and doings that are held together by bodily and mental activities, things
and their use, understandings, practical know-how, emotional states, and motivational
knowledge (Gram-Hanssen, 2011: 64; Reckwitz, 2002: 249). These practices are shared in
the sense that individuals ‘carry’ socially anchored practices (Vihalemm et al., 2016) and
because some practices are performed temporally synchronically in a population (Plessz and
Wahlen, 2022).
Practices must be understood in the context of different overlapping practices that make up
everyday life (Warde, 2014). For example, combinations of food practices with health
practices (i.e., practices oriented toward conventional standards of healthiness) have
consequences for the foods involved, how they are eaten, and the meaning the foods have
for the people eating them. How different practices influence each other is a recurrent
practice theoretical debate (Warde, 2014). Shove et al. (2012) argue that practices can either
collaborate or compete. Practices can collaborate in ways in which they are intrinsically
linked to each other. For example, food practices can be viewed as complexes of practices
consisting of shopping, cooking, eating, and cleaning, which are co-dependent on the
existence and reproduction of each other (Castelo et al., 2021). In contrast, some practices
compete in the sense that they establish the terms and conditions on which others interact.
(Shove et al., 2012: 90–91). From an individual's point of view, practice competition can
also be viewed in terms of commitment to a practice, that is, the time and value a practitioner
devotes to a practice (Plessz and Wahlen, 2022: 145–146).
While some practices take up more time and value than others (Molander, 2011; Shove et
al., 2012) the question of why some practices establish the conditions for other practices lies
open. This concerns the problem of power in theories of practice, which has been addressed
in different ways. Watson (2016) asks, “What characterizes those practices which have

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influence over the performance of other practices?”. Watson draws on the Foucauldian
concepts of power and governmentality and actor-network theory to address how
institutional governance is constituted, reproduced, and enacted through practices (Watson,
2016). Similarly, Halkier (2020) demonstrates how ‘discourses on healthier food’ can be
decisive for which practices are most powerful within the complexes of food practices. To
address the problem of power in theories of practice, we operationalize ‘competition’
between video gaming and food practices by asking: When and how do video gaming and
food practices come to establish the terms and conditions on which the other is performed?
By asking this question, we home to empirical instances where video gaming or food appear
to be accorded precedence over the other in terms of commitment.
4. Methods and data
The empirical results in this article stem from a qualitative study of video gaming in young
Danish adults’ everyday lives (Skelly and Jensen, 2022), where part of the study focused on
the relationship between video gaming and domestic practicalities, such as cooking, eating,
food related clean-up. Data were generated using two methods: diary-interviews and focus
groups. Diary-interviews combine self-reports of individuals’ everyday routines prior to
conducting semi-structured qualitative interviews (Zimmerman and Wieder, 1977). We
used diary-interviews because several practices in everyday life are routinized and taken for
granted, and difficult for participants to accurately recall (Alaszewski, 2006). Participants
were asked to fill out an online diary throughout a full week and indicate which hours they
had played video games, with whom, and share reflections about their video gaming (see
supplementary material for an example of a diary entry). The diary entries were not used as
data, but rather as prompts during the interview to jog participants about their video gaming
routines during the interview (Harvey, 2011). The interviews also contained an unstructured
segment in which participants were asked to show their video gaming setups. In combination

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with the diary, this generated data on the tacit aspects of their video gaming routines in situ
(Martens, 2012) which included competition with food activities in everyday life.
Focus groups were conducted because practices are guided by normative ramifications that
shape power relations between practices (Halkier, 2020; Warde, 2016). Focus groups
establish social situations between individuals where thematically structured social
interactions generate knowledge about the “hidden social logics” that stir everyday practices
(Demant, 2012: 68). None of the participants knew each other prior to attending the focus
groups. The methodological gain from focus groups with strangers is that they can lead to
participants questioning the 'taken-for-grantedness’ of each other’s practices (Halkier,
2017b). Part of the focus groups consisted of an exercise in which participants were
presented with images of common domestic practicalities, such as sleeping, cleaning, and
cooking. In the exercise, participants were asked if and how these practicalities took time
from their video gaming and vice versa. In this exercise, participants talked about how their
video gaming interacted with food activities in their everyday lives.
Three sampling criteria were used for the participants. First, participants had to play video
games for at least four days a week and a minimum of 10 hours a week as an indicator of
‘gaming engagement’ (Debeauvais et al., 2011; Hussain and Griffiths, 2009). This sampling
criterion ensured that participants actively engaged in video gaming in their everyday life,
rather than on special occasions, such as during LAN events or during weekends. Second,
young adults, defined as 18-30 years old, who had moved from home to ensure that they
had to navigate everyday life without direct parental influence. Third, variation in video
games played among the full group of participants to avoid biases of practices exclusive to
specific video games. We also sampled participants according to variations in income,
gender, educational level, and occupation.

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Participants were recruited through Danish social media gaming groups between June and
October 2021. Diary-interview participants were granted cinema gift cards for their
participation. Eight diary-interviews and two focus groups with three participants in each
focus group were conducted, amounting to 14 participants in total. The participants in focus
groups and diary-interviews were different people. The participants were between 20-30
years old, and eight participants identified as men and six identified as women. Both focus
groups had two participants who identified as men and one participant who identified as a
woman. The reason why we sought this mixed gendered constellation is that men and
women engage with video games (Thorhauge and Gregersen, 2019) and domestic
practicalities (Thébaud et al., 2021) differently. For details on participants, see
Supplementary Material, table 1-3.
Ethical review is not required in Denmark for qualitative studies of this kind. However, we
took ethical measures. One, we obtained informed consent from all participants involved in
the study. Two, personal identifiable information in the transcripts were anonymized. Three,
the data material was stored in accordance with GDPR and treated with confidentiality.
Four, because video gaming is frequently problematized in public discourse (Enevold et al.,
2018), we were conscious about not reproducing a problem discourse of video gaming in
our encounters with participants. Thus, we were hesitant about asking questions regarding
problematic characteristics of video gaming, and if done so, the questions were followed by
questions about positive aspects of video gaming.
The data were transcribed and coded using the qualitative data software NVivo. We adopted
an abductive strategy for coding and interpretation (Coffey and Atkinson, 1996;
Timmermans and Tavory, 2012) which involved constructing preliminary codes on behalf
of the research interest and revising them. The complete coding scheme involved many
different codes that covered the research interest in investigating video gaming in everyday

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life. One of the codes concerned video gaming and food consumption. Using this code, we
examined practitioners’ descriptions of their commitment to food activities in relation to
video gaming to make analytical inferences about how and when food and video gaming
practices condition each other.
5. Results
In the following, we present the results of analyzing the participants’ everyday video gaming
and food practices and how they condition each other. The first section shows how the
competition between video gaming and food practices is largely guided by how these
practices realize sociability. The second section describes how this practice competition is
also filtered by gendered commitments to domestic standards.
5.1. Realizing sociability
The increased prevalence and use of domestic technologies, such as televisions and
computers, has been linked to slackening of eating etiquette (see Holm et al., 2016) or even
meal skipping (Cemelli et al., 2016; Van den Bulck and Eggermont, 2006). In the context
of video gaming, the implication is that carriers of video gaming practices have a primary
orientation toward video gaming in everyday life, which produces tension with other
practices. In what follows, we propose that the competition between video gaming and food
practices is determined by how these two practices individually realize sociability.
Sociability in this context is understood as associations “accompanied by a feeling for, by a
satisfaction in, the very fact that one is associated with others and that the solitariness of the
individual is resolved into togetherness, a union with others.” (Simmel and Hughes, 1949:
254–255) [our emphasis]. As emphasized in the theory section, whether a practice comes to
establish the conditions of other practices depends on the institutional logics that assemble
the power relation between practices. We suggest that sociability can be viewed as such an

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institutional logic and contend that ‘sociability’ can be viewed as a desired value in itself,
rather than as a medium to realize other ends.
5.1.1. Collecve ming, local duraons
Because video gaming encompasses a wide range of activities and can be adapted to
accommodate multiple personal schedules simultaneously, it is potentially always available
for engagement (Skelly et al., 2023). Nevertheless, as Meriläinen, (2022) showed in a study
of Finnish adults’ video gaming rhythms during the COVID-19 pandemic, the rhythms of
everyday life shape video gaming rhythms significantly, even in disruptive times. The
majority of the participants in our study also reference distinct rhythms for their video
gaming sessions initiated by the completion of other practices. This is described in a focus
group by John in his count of hours devoted to video gaming.
John: I calculated it a bit this weekend. With Friday, Saturday, and
Sunday, I have probably played close to 20 hours, 20 hours plus. But on
the weekdays- Now I work from 8am to 5pm every day and come home at
6pm. And then I must cook and stuff like that, but play maybe three hours
max. If you then have something scheduled- We often work out at my
workplace after work, and then you are not home before 8pm, and then
you must cook and are tired too. So, there are some days where I do not
play at all.
John talks of his weekdays as structured by separate slots, where cooking is perceived as a
distinct activity that precedes video gaming. The implication is that video gaming is
temporally ordered as a post-dinner activity and is potentially omitted for days that push
dinner to later hours. A rhythm of video gaming structured around dinner is also referenced
by other participants. For example, Irene: ”I eat dinner and then I usually play after 7pm,
approximately, 7-8pm and then I can play three to four hours.” and Hassan: “I usually play

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before dinner. That’s when I’ve just come back from school or work and need to stress out.”.
This suggests that for those who carry practices in which video gaming is devoted significant
amounts of time, the timing of dinners remains socially conventional. Most evening eating
events in several Northern European countries happen between 5-8pm and peak at 6-7pm
(Lund and Gronow, 2014; Plessz and Wahlen, 2022; Yates and Warde, 2017). In this light,
the rhythms of food and video gaming practices conform to the collective timing of dinner
and successive recreational evening activities. These evening hours are known as “prime
time” (Shove et al., 2012: 90) where large shares of a population have time available for
entertainment engagements. The synchrony in this daily rhythm suggests that conventions
of dinner structure if and when video gaming is available for engagement. We want to
emphasize that this ‘around-dinner’ scheduling of video gaming is perhaps even more
significant considering the participants were young adults aged 20-30. People in this age
group, especially if childless, can allocate their leisure time more flexibly than other age
groups (Jacobs and Gerson, 2009) and should hypothetically be the most likely age group
to deviate from collective timing.
In addition to the broader collective timing of dinners that condition when video gaming
occurs, local timing of video gaming appear to influence commitments to food provisioning.
Consider how a participant outlines the differences between her food sequences when asked
whether she eats in front of the computer.
Sophie: It depends on whether I am doing something on the computer. If
we have a break – if we are in a tournament or something. Then we will
take a quick break like “Okay, I quickly need to make a slice of rye bread”
or something like that. Or if I have more time and we say “Okay, in an
hour we’ll start a new game” or something similar, then I have the time
to cook some proper food.

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The decisive aspect of what sequence Sophie follows appears to be guided by the timing of
in-game events with co-gamers. The first scenario encourages convenient food provisioning,
and the second permits cooking of ‘proper food’. What is peculiar about Sophie’s food
sequences is that 'proper food’ is not so much tied to the content of the food but to the
duration of cooking. This local factor of being sociable with her co-gamers seems to be how
video gaming conditions how cooking is performed. Additionally, rather than her sequences
of convenient food provisioning being associated with eating ultra-processed food, often
highlighted as common in video gaming culture (Cronin and McCarthy, 2011b), Sophie
makes a slice of rye bread. Rye bread, commemorated for its health benefits in Denmark
(Hasselbalch et al., 2010) and considered a convenient food by young Danes (Halkier,
2017a:141), can also accommodate locally timed sociable video gaming by virtue of its
instant accessibility. A distinction between two sequences of food provisioning in relation
to video gaming sessions is also underscored by David: “I can definitely end up making
[food] – whether it is going to be a quick carbonara or it is going to be a lasagna that takes
more time to put together.”. Like Sophie, David makes a distinction through quantitative
measurement of time. These examples imply that local video gaming timing may condition
when and for how long food provisioning is performed, but the meaning of ‘proper food’ in
relation to video gaming seems to revolve around the duration of food provisioning rather
than food content.
5.1.2. Supplies of company
Beyond the timing of video gaming activities, the realization of sociability also concerns the
prospects of company. Of the 14 participants in the study, six live alone while the remaining
eight live together with a partner, a flat mate, or a family member. When participants address
food, they seem less worried about informal vs. ‘proper meals’ and more concerned with
how food provisioning supports and hinders interactions with company either in-game or at

15
their home. Asked about what feelings are connected to instances when video gaming
accords precedence over cooking and evening meals, a participant says:
Yasmin: If it affected more serious stuff, then I would probably have
something on my conscience and start to think about it, but because it is
something as unimportant as simply cooking for myself, it does not matter.
(…) But if we have agreed that I will cook for me and my flat mate I will
cook at the given time or agree on a time, and then there is nothing called
gaming, because another person is dependent on me.
For Yasmin food provisioning for solitary settings “does not matter.” However, if she is
cooking for her flat mate, the meaning attributed to the eating event is inverted, as cooking
and eating are expected at a set time and there is “nothing called gaming”. The meaning
attributed to solitary eating events could be interpreted as a result of video gaming culture
encouraging social isolation, which is a common portrayal of gamer stereotypes in popular
culture (Kowert et al., 2012; Williams et al., 2008). However, as indicated by sociological
research, the attraction of cooking and ‘proper meals’ is contingent upon the presence of
others because cooking for oneself and eating alone is considered culturally undesirable
(Pliner and Bell, 2009; Yates and Warde, 2017: 99–100). As a result, eating alone is for
many associated with negative emotions (Jamieson and Simpson, 2013: 125–131). In this
light, Yasmin’s priority for elaborate cooking and eating over video gaming seems directed
by the co-present flat mate, which shifts the perception of what type of occasion the eating
event is. As Short (2006: 35) points out guidelines for food provisioning are mostly
structured by the answers to the question, “what is the occasion?” or “who will be present?”.
However, the influence of co-present individuals may not only increase commitment to food
provisioning. Company through video gaming may also diminish the commitment to food
provisioning, as exemplified by a participant who lives alone:

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Interviewer: You said you always make food? Is it one of those things you
consider important, and you always prioritize?
Peter: Yes, I always prioritize it. I do. Sometimes it is not super
complicated. Sometimes it is pasta I boil and then cook some meat and
throw it all together. And that is just it. But I always prioritize getting
something to eat over omitting it and going in [to the room with his
gaming device] immediately. It also has to do with that I do not have a
super good time if there are no others on, who I can talk to. That is why I
do not have a great desire [to play] before the time we usually agree on.
Peter describes a personal norm of always prioritizing making food prior to his evening
video gaming sessions on weekdays, but tellingly reveals that video gaming is not attractive
before his friends are online. The availability of online friends makes video gaming more
appealing than elaborate cooking and eating. Spending time cooking can thus be a time filler
before the main attraction of his leisure time, online social company, is supplied. A recurrent
discussion in interactionist sociology is whether physical and online co-presence should be
differentiated (Boyns and Loprieno, 2013; Collins, 2020). Some scholars argue online co-
presence can produce equally intense social interactions and emotional experiences and, as
a result, commitments to social groups (Boyns and Loprieno, 2013; Simpson et al., 2018).
If we accept that online co-presence is equal to physical co-presence, persons in lone
households or persons who regularly eat alone may experience video gaming’s omnipresent
supply of company can provide sociability that evening cooking and eating to a lesser degree
can. For this reason, the commitment to ‘proper’ food provisioning can be lesser, because
convenient food options cater to sustaining interactions with company. As Halkier (2017a:
147) notes, “using convenient food perhaps intersects supportively with some of the other
activities and practices in the everyday lives of the young people, such as fitting logistic and

17
upholding friendships”. This may also explain why food in video gaming culture is
associated with the consumption of ‘junk food’ over more elaborate cooking. Consider this
example from a participant in a focus group.
Simon: I’ve many times ended up prioritizing playing over other things
that I actually would have like to have done. For example, cleaning, tidy
up, order food on Wolt instead of cooking and going shopping. If you are
in winners’ queue or sitting and having an extra good time with the boys
or something. Then I often order food instead of cooking it myself. Then
I’m good at, not to use it as an excuse, but to deprioritize other things
over computer games. Though I will say that I have always been good at
important stuff like events, school, or work.
What is implied is that takeout food is convenient during “winning queue” and when
“having a good time with the boys”. Among people who play video games, winners’ queue
(synonymous with winning streak) is an expression for the experience that games are going
well, and that a continuation of playing will lead to even more wins. Simon’s lack of
commitment to ‘proper’ food provisioning is an example of how takeout food can support
the fulfilment of sociable video gaming sessions, where more elaborate food provisioning
would remove the practitioner from the practice in which company is supplied.
In sum, it is from these processes of collective timing, local durations, and supplies of
company that the sociable aspects of video gaming come to establish the conditions for how
food is acquired, prepared, and eaten. From this, we propose to distinguish between the
categories of ‘gaming foods’ and ‘gamer foods’. We contend the latter, a term appearing in
the literature on food in video gaming culture (Cronin and McCarthy, 2012) may accurately
depict food consumed during rituals and social ceremonies in video gaming culture that

18
contain identity-communicating and expressive interactions. In contrast, ‘gaming foods’,
whether being rye bread, a quick carbonara or ready-to-eat takeout food, cover foods that
are aligned with video gaming’s enablement of realizing sociability in everyday life. With
‘gaming foods,’ socially supportive timing and durations of food provisioning are more
significant than foods’ symbolic qualities. Because of these attributes, we contend that
arrays of healthy foods too are viable as ‘gaming foods’ as long as they conform to realizing
sociability through convenient food provisioning.
5.2. Gendered commitments
In this section, we argue commitments to food and video gaming are filtered by gender.
First, we find the contents of foods are guided by conventional standards of healthy food,
and whether these health standards are incorporated into the practices is a question of
gender. Second, gendered expectations of housekeeping also guide the practice competition.
5.2.1. Gender and healthiness
There is evidence that women to a larger degree than men engage in practices that align with
conventional standards of healthy eating (Bärebring et al., 2020; O’Doherty Jensen and
Holm, 1999). Among the participants who identified as women, this also seems to be the
case, as they mention thinking about their health is an active part of how their food
provisioning interacts with their video gaming activities. An example is when Irene talks
about eating in front of her video gaming device:
Interviewer: Are there any everyday activities that you feel your gaming
can compromise?
Irene: No, I don’t think so really. Well, even though I play, I also work out
two times a week. Maybe even three times if I am in a good mood. But it
is also because I know that it is not very good to just sit down and look
into [a screen]. You do not burn any energy by doing so. And usually, you

19
sit and eat something. I usually eat pretty healthy if I should say so myself.
Then I would eat nuts instead of eating chips. Because I know that if you
just sit and stare into a screen, then you will be eating a whole bag of
chips.
The fact that Irene refers to a bag of chips, an archetypical gamer food, and her substitution
of nuts indicates that Irene has an awareness of ‘health practices’ (Halkier, 2020) in her
negotiation of preventing unhealthy eating habits due to video gaming. This practice of
health is also indicated when Irene mentions how her workout compensates for the physical
inactivity of video gaming. This shows how health practices intersect with the food and
video gaming practice domain and influence the content of what food is consumed during
video gaming sessions. In other words, because “it is not good to just sit down and look into
[a screen]”, the choices of food need to be ‘healthy’ to provide a balancing counter to video
gaming itself. Another example comes from Sophie, who mentions how she “usually drinks
Nocco, which is a no-carb company, and they are a kind of healthy energy drink that does
not contain any additives.”. The statements by Irene and Sophie can be understood from
Courtenay's (2000) perspective, who argues that health practices should be viewed in light
of how they reflect a performance of gender. As Courtenay states “cultural standards of
femininity lead women to engage in healthy, not unhealthy, behavior.” (Courtenay, 2000:
1395). We contend that these cultural standards of gender might explain how practice
formations of video gaming and food activities play out. This argument is supported by
further evidence from the participants who identified as men rarely addressing similar
‘health practices’. An example of this comes from Tom.
Tom: I actually don’t think there is much to say about days where I am off.
Because I will legit just sit and game. And then I’ll go to the gas station

20
and buy a Booster if I need it. And then I’ll go – I check Netto’s discount
ad to see if they have anything cheap.
While Irene’s choices of food are informed by health practices, Tom’s food consist of
“anything cheap” from Netto, a Danish retail chain, and energy drinks from his local gas
station. Additionally, Tom mentions how he “just sits and game” on days where he is off
from work with seemingly no intentions of moving away from his gaming device. Contrary
to standards of femininity that encourage women to engage in health practices, masculinity
is linked to unhealthy practices, as caring for one’s health represents a fragility incompatible
with conventional masculinity (Courtenay, 2000: 1389). When such gendered logics
penetrate the practice competition between video gaming and food activities, masculine
commitments to food are enabled, where food is solely perceived to be indulgent and
convenient “fuel” (Cronin and McCarthy, 2011a) conditioned by video gaming’s demands.
5.2.2. Housekeeping versus video gaming
Standards of healthiness do not appear as the sole gendered institutional logic to guide the
practice competition between video gaming and food. Among the participants, the women
express how cleanliness has a strong influence on prioritizing either video gaming or food
clean-up. This is reflected in this negotiation in a focus group.
John: I prioritize gaming higher than doing the dishes.
May: No, I am more like, doing the dishes is more important than my
gaming. If I sit down, I will not be doing these things, and then I will
become crazy. There has to be clean and nice first, and then gaming
afterwards.
Simon: I can sometimes catch myself suddenly sitting in an AsmonGold
Lair.

21
May: Yes, I also think that my boyfriend could do that. I can’t.
Within sociological literature, it has been emphasized that standards of cleanliness vary
between men and women. Women generally have higher standards of cleanliness, are
expected to do more household work, and are judged harder for untidy homes (Hochschild
and Machung, 1989; Thébaud et al., 2021). According to data from 2018, Danish women
still do more housework than do Danish men (Bonke and Wiese Christensen, 2018). In other
words, there are several reasons why ‘housekeeping practices’ take precedence in the
practice plenum women engage in. The focus group quote shows how such gendered
expectations also influence video gaming and food competition. John and Simon express
how video gaming is valued higher than doing the dishes. Specifically, Simon mentions that
he can sometimes find himself sitting in an “AsmonGold Lair”, which is a cultural reference
to the video game streamer AsmonGold, who is known to play video games in piles of food
and drink-related garbage
ii
. The opposite is the case for the woman participant, May, who
underscores how “there has to be clean and nice first, and then gaming afterwards”.
Winn and Heeter (2009) investigated gender differences in leisure time and video gaming
time investments among undergraduate students in the US. They find women play for fewer
hours, play at shorter intervals, and play more casual games than men do. Based on their
findings, Winn and Heeter hypothesize that “one reason women play fewer games than men
is because they are required to fulfil more obligatory activities, leaving them less available
leisure time, which in turn makes them less likely to “make” time for games.” (Winn and
Heeter, 2009: 10). In relation to the focus group quote above, May’s dedication to
cleanliness suggests that cleaning (“doing the dishes”) takes precedence over video gaming
because she feels required to fulfil ‘obligatory activities’ such as housekeeping. A similar
tendency is expressed by another woman participant when she speaks about feeling
responsible for supporting her boyfriend’s video gaming:

22
Interviewer: And what about the people you play with, do you feel that
you have a responsibility to play with them?
Sarah: I don’t. But my boyfriend does. Sometimes I can feel it when he
gets home and he is like “okay, I have just called my brother and he is not
working overtime today, so maybe we will be playing tonight. And I just
need to call the boys”. And then I am just like “yes, yes, then I’ll make the
dinner”. I feel a responsibility regarding my boyfriend, so that he can play
with his friends, because I know it means a lot to him.
Sarah, who lives with her boyfriend, tells how she feels responsible for making dinner, so
her boyfriend can play with his friends. This is in spite of both Sarah and her boyfriend
having a high video gaming engagement throughout a typical week. It can be argued that
the sense of responsibility Sarah feels to support her boyfriend’s video gaming reflects a
gendered division of labor within the household and that these norms add ‘leisure
constraints’ to women’s available (video gaming) time (Bryce and Rutter, 2006). Women
are expected to carry out domestic duties, such as cooking, which has consequences for their
leisure time. In contrast, men do not to the same degree experience these constraints to their
leisure time, and thus a care-free sociability may be more likely in guiding their practices
leading to longer uninterrupted video gaming sessions. According to Holm et al., (2015) and
Warde (2024) there has been an increase in men’s participation in cooking in the Global
North over the past decades, yet women still do a larger share of cooking compared to men.
What ample empirical data indicate is that the competition between video gaming and food
is partly organized by gender. Video gaming represents a contemporary pathway to sociable
interactions, yet access is unequally distributed according to gendered norms of ‘who does
what’ in the household.

23
In summary, when video gaming and food practices compete, institutional logics of gender
are essential for guiding how food selection and whether housekeeping accords precedence
over video gaming. In this light, we suggest that the terms to which food practices are
established in relation to video gaming are filtered by gendered ways and expectations of
doing food, for which masculinity is conducive toward indulgence and convenience and
femininity is conducive toward healthiness and care.
6. Discussion
The results of this article indicate that commitments to video gaming and food in mundane
settings are molded by sociable desires and gendered logics. These results are interesting in
the light of broader societal changes towards individualization in the Global North that have
been documented and theorized in sociological literature. Giddens (1990) emphasizes how
kinship relationships and local communities have in many instances been replaced by
personal relationships of friendships or abstract systems independent of space and time.
Individualization is also evidenced by the rise of one-person households significantly
structuring where and when social encounters take place in contemporary daily life
(Klinenberg, 2012). Shrinking household sizes and more individualized household
arrangements undoubtedly impair the likelihood of sociable cooking and eating, given that
household members are the most common source of meal companionship (Yates and Warde,
2017: 102). This might render socializing online increasingly attractive over extensive
performances of solitary cooking and eating. The future implication is that continued video
gaming engagements may increase the demand for convenient food provisioning, that is,
what we have dubbed ‘gaming foods’. Such gaming foods can include rye bread slices,
quickly thrown together pasta dishes, and delivered takeout food, as demonstrated in the
results, but may also include assemblage food bags or meal-box schemes, as these too
accommodate flexible planning and execution of food provisioning (Halkier, 2021).

24
Gender remains a key social differentiator in research on both food consumption and video
gaming engagement. However, the gendered dimensions of food in video gaming culture
have received little attention. This is also true for research on LAN party food whose
samples are mostly boys or young men (Cronin and McCarthy, 2011a, 2011b, 2012;
Joelsson et al., 2023; Krarup et al., 2022; Law, 2020). Based on this article’s results, we
speculate if the conventional perceptions of the dominant role of junk food in the video
gaming culture are artifacts of a youth food culture with a masculine bent. Youth food
cultures are defined by struggles for independence from adult supervision often expressed
through fast-food consumption (Best, 2014). In addition, men are less socially monitored
for the quantities of food consumed than women (O’Doherty Jensen and Holm, 1999) and
masculinity is generally defined in opposition to healthy practices (Courtenay, 2000). The
combination of these aspects suggests that the popular perceptions of food in video gaming
culture may in fact be depictions of a predominantly masculine youth food culture
characterized by indulgence and convenience that happens to be observable in video gaming
spaces.
7. Limitaons
This article has some limitations. First, the data’s sample size. We use qualitative diary-
interviews and focus groups to achieve a contextual perspective on how time spent video
gaming is spent in relation to other activities in everyday life. Secondary activities that co-
occur during video gaming are often omitted in studies that investigate time spent on video
gaming. While we focus on how food and video gaming practices co-occur, this article’s
results are based on practices carried by 14 participants. To our knowledge, no study has
provided large-scale quantitative data on simultaneous engagement with video gaming and
food in everyday life. Hampton (2017) suggests that time-use diaries are particularly good

25
at providing large-scale quantitative data on secondary activities. We invite researchers to
conduct such research to support or challenge the results of this article.
The second limitation is related to the age group of the sample. We sampled young adults
aged 20-30 years old. However, this age group may have distinct (youth) food consumption
patterns owing to their life phases. We imagine when the participants move further into
adulthood, norms of adulthood and increased family responsibilities will alter the extent to
which video gaming can be devoted time and attention in the social organization of the
household (Karlsen, 2018) significantly impacting the competition between video gaming
and food in food practices’ favor. We suggest conducting longitudinal research on video
gaming and food to enable comparisons across different life phases.
A final limitation concerns the role of video games. Theories of practice can be considered
a ‘non-media centric’ perspective on media use (Morley 2009 in Thorhauge and Gregersen,
2019) meaning that video games and their designs are ontologically equalized with other
elements that shape practices. This theoretical perspective helps clarify competition between
video gaming and food practices but can show less about the extent to which specific video
games and video game genres facilitate different modes of food conduct. Based on this
article’s findings, we suspect differences to be minor, but invite research to examine this
relationship.
8. Conclusion
Food consumption in video gaming culture has been linked to convenience, nutritionally
poor food, and unconventional eating norms. This article interrogates this link by exploring
the interactions between video gaming and food in mundane settings. To do so, we ask how
video gaming and food practices compete for time and attention in everyday life. We find
the competition between video gaming and food is decided by the practice that best realizes
the desire to be sociable and gendered commitments to healthiness and housekeeping. First,

26
socially shared rhythms of dinners mark the closure and opening for if and when video
gaming sessions can occur, but the draw to video gaming or food activities is conditioned
by whether they provide social company. As people in the Global North live more
individualized lives, sociability may be increasingly achieved through video gaming over
cooking and eating, subsequently increasing the demand for ‘gaming foods’. Second,
gendered expectations sway women away from indulgent and convenient foods and toward
food provisioning patterns aligned with feminized standards of healthiness and
housekeeping. From this, we suggest that the perception of the ‘junk food video gaming
culture’ may be tied to gendered aspects of food consumption that have received little
attention in research on video gaming culture.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for taking the time and effort
necessary to review the manuscript. We appreciate their valuable comments and
suggestions, which helped us improve the quality of the manuscript.
Declaraon of conicng interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication
of this article.
i
No scientific studies have to our knowledge examined the share of where contemporary
video gaming takes place. Nonetheless, LAN-parties appear to be a relic of the past. In
cultural media, coverage in the last decade has dubbed LAN-parties close to extinction
(Duneau and Vautier, 2022). A photograph book has also been published to “document the
nostalgic era of LAN-parties” (Plunkett, 2022).

27
ii
See for instance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzy1uUgeRPI&t
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