Mukbang- and Cookbang-watching status and dietary life of university students who are not food and nutrition majors

Abstract

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: As watching food-related programs has become very popular among the young generation in Korea, this study sought to compare the Mukbang-and Cookbang-watching status of university students with their dietary life. SUBJECTS/METHODS: The participants were 380 students who were not majoring in food and nutrition at a university in Gyeonggi, Korea. Based on self-reports, the participants were grouped according to their frequency of watching Mukbang or Cookbang: frequent-watching (FW) 21.1% and 5.3%, respectively; moderate-watching (MW) 43.9% and 27.9%, respectively; and not-watching (NW) 35.0% and 66.8% respectively. RESULTS: In the FW group, up to 88.8% and 70.0% of participants reported watching Mukbang and Cookbang, respectively, ≥ 3 days/week. Almost all participants in the FW and MW groups reported intention to keep watching these shows. The most frequent watching route was "YouTube" and the most important criterion to select a program was "food". In the case of Mukbang, but not Cookbang, the participants in the FW group scored their diet significantly worse than those in the NW group (P < 0.05). A greater proportion of participants felt that watching Cookbang improved their diets rather than worsened them (14.3% vs. 0.8%, respectively), while more participants said that watching Mukbang worsened their diets rather than improved them (8.1% vs. 2.4%, respectively). In both cases, greater differences were shown in the FW groups compared to the MW groups (P < 0.05 and P < 0.01 for Cookbang and Mukbang, respectively). Moreover, the participants answered that Mukbang-watching prompted them to eat more of less desirable food, such as through eating out and purchasing convenient and delivered foods, whereas Cookbang-watching made them want to cook more of their own food. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggested that Korean university students who frequently watch Mukbang, but not Cookbang, may be a nutritionally vulnerable group that needs attention.

The Mediating Effects of Food Content Watching Motivation on the between Watching Time and Nutrition Quotient of Adolescents in Seoul, Korea

“…The investigation included, the type of content (mukbang: eating broadcast, cookbang: cooking broadcast, ASMR: autonomous sensory meridian response, SNS food image or video, others), the route of watching the content (YouTube, SNS, TV, internet broadcast, others), and the average watching time per day. The motivation for watching food-related content was evaluated using nine questions, which were revised and supplemented previous studies [ 27 , 37 , 38 , 39 ]. A 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = “never” to 5 = “always” was used to calculate the scores.…”

“…in traditional media; or to obtain information or inspiration, entice one’s appetite, experience social interaction, and appreciate aesthetic food in online media [ 26 ]. Watching motivation affects the selection of food-related content types, which can influence other aspects of youth eating habits [ 27 , 28 ]. Preventive nutrition education and nutritional intervention in adolescence have effects such as preventing obesity and improving nutritional status [ 29 , 30 ].…”

“…Research on food-related content has been conducted, but most studies have only confirmed the relationship between the use of some content or social media and body image, eating disorders, food choices, and obesity [ 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 ]. More exploratory studies are needed because the relationship between the frequency of watching food-related content, watching motivation, and diet has been reported [ 25 , 27 ]. A recent study also reported that media watching affects adolescents’ dietary habits, and that wise use of media is necessary to form healthy eating habits [ 36 ].…”

Refeições conectadas: a prática da comensalidade remota em adultos brasileiros que moram sozinhos

“…Sobre as publicações a respeito de mukbang dos últimos dois anos, foram propostos dois eixos de interesse: um que trata da prática em si, mapeando o uso das redes sociais, motivações dos usuários, descrevendo elementos que compõem o mukbang e o comportamento das comunidades que se formam ao redor dele (ANJANI et al, 2020;KANG et al, 2020, KIM, 2021KIRCABURAN et al, 2020d; e outro que se pergunta sobre eventuais danos à saúde causados pela prática do mukbang ou do consumo dos vídeos e sua associação a doenças e transtornos alimentares (KIRCABURAN et al, 2020a;KIRCABURAN et al, 2020b;KIRCABURAN et al, 2020c;WANG, 2020).…”

Perilaku Menonton Mukbang dan Preferensi Makanan Mahasiswa di Jakarta

“…(26) Selain mukbang, beberapa video yang memberikan sajian terkait dengan makanan juga bermunculan dan menjadi tren di kalangan remaja dan dewasa muda serta dapat memberikan efek terhadap perubahan kebiasaan makan seperti cookbang, food review, travel, and culinary tour dan ASMR video. (27)…”