Food delivery services and the culture of binge watching: The chill and chow of the entertainment and food industry

“Eating luscious food and binge watching on an OTT platform are two of the best perks for consumers of modern times. Everything else is flapdoodle.”

Introduction

When the most awaited movie of Christopher Nolan is about to be aired on an OTT platform, the new season of your favorite show has just come out or the Spanish football team is scheduled to play Brazil in the FIFA world cup 2022 in the knock out round shortly, you may find yourself wanting to have a binge session. Whether you are planning to have some friends over, or you’re ready for a solo night of your leisurely watching, ordering delectable food dishes makes all the difference. Just grab your phone, tap and order and see some sumptuous delicacy or cuisine coming right to your door at an unbelievably quick pace – and guess what? There’s absolutely no need to even pause your movie or match; for the show must go on.

This has become the new norm in today’s contemporary times. Food deliveries are feasting on binge watching and as is the fever for a favorite show or FIFA world cup, so it is for food deliveries. While on one hand, binge watching has become the favorite way to consume television for a plethora of people, one the other hand, binge eating has become the new norm. With the rise in number of foodies and food bloggers in this famished world wanting more food every day, the food delivery industry has some potential opportunities to grab and put in their wishful bucket of sales and profits. This reveals in front of us the fact that the trend of food delivery services has been picked up quite enormously by consumers and businesses and it is spreading across various country markets like wildfire.

Binge watching and eating: The sedentary yet irresistible duo

Though the growth in food deliveries can be attributed to a number of factors viz a viz busy life schedules and hectic work days or one feeling under the weather, but binge watching has seemingly produced more ravenous consumers than anything ever has.

An associate professor named Temple Northup at the University of Houston, Texas, USA has studied the relationship between food consumption and the number of hours spent in front of the television. His study, published in the January 2015 issue of The International Journal of Communication and Health, surveyed 591 undergraduate students on their viewing, eating and drinking habits and he found that the more people watched TV, the more they engaged in unhealthy eating. "The explanation is relatively straightforward — the act of watching TV is a sedentary activity that encourages snacking," says Northup.

Lots of other researches show that mindless eating plays a prominent role in how much we ingest while remaining distracted with what is happening on screen. "Watching TV while eating is also common behavior," says Cheung. "When we are distracted while eating, or eating mindlessly, we are not paying full attention to the food in front of us, and miss the satiety cues letting us know that we are full."

This has overtime led us to eating more and more. Mass media promoting movies and shows, though inadvertently and pretty much indirectly, increase the likelihood of binge eating, given the lifestyles the majority of us are leading or gradually adopting. If binge eating during shows of binge watching is not enough, the fact that the content you consume visually, also directly or indirectly influences the quantity of food you eat, is indeed revelatory and intriguing. No? Read on.

What you watch will decide how much you eat. Surprised?

What if I say that the content you view decides how much you eat? It might be surprising but it is true. Though overall viewing time is certainly an important factor when it comes to reaching conclusions about seeking online food deliveries and eating, but the genre of what you are watching may also considerably influence how much you munch and in what quantity you are going to eat.

A few researchers from Cornell University's Food and Brand Lab have found that action content (say, The Walking Dead) made subjects eat twice as much — 98 percent more, to be exact — than their counterparts who watched a talk show. And sad content (like the sci-fi drama Solaris) made participants eat 55 percent more than those who watched more upbeat content, like the romantic comedy My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

Researchers speculate that action and adventure shows may promote mindless eating because people generally exhibit the tendency to consume more to keep up with the pace of the content they are watching. "It might be the level of distraction — how engaging the content is," says Aner Tal, a research associate at Cornell's Food and Brand Lab. "Another possibility is that it's the feelings associated with what you are watching. Specifically, anything that involves a stress reaction enhances people's levels of cortisol — and we know that leads to overeating."

While watching an extremely sentimental narrative or as is usually the case with tearjerkers, the increase in snacking can be credited to stress responses but also to emotional eating, which compensates for sadness. "It makes you feel temporarily better," says Tal.

Another separate study from Cornell's Food and Brand Lab maintained that food-related content on television makes even those who are watching their diet i.e., the restrained eaters, to eat more. Led by Food and Brand Lab Director Brian Wansink, the study found that, when subjects watched episodes of SpongeBob SquarePants, an American animated television series, in which the protagonist was selling chocolate bars, they ate more than their counterparts who watched an episode unrelated to food. This is the kind of relationship diners and viewers share with each other. And the level of impact of binge viewing is quite significant on binge eating, thereby making more frequent online food orders.

Cheung in one of his studies maintains that for people to reduce mindless eating, they ought to practice mindful eating for increased control over their relationship with food. Knowing the impact of binge watching on eating, he suggests individuals to remove any form of distractions- television shows and mobile notifications, etc so as to bring their full attention to the food in front of them, going beyond just taste and thereby engaging all the senses- including sight, smell, texture and the sound their food makes.

Aner Tal, on the other hand, suggests you don't have to banish snacking while viewing. He says just be aware how television influences what you put in your mouth, and plan accordingly.

Wrapping up-

The relationship between binge watching and binge eating is perfectly dovetailed into each other, given the growing craze for both the things. Streaming services Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney Hotstar and Voot select, etc are helping to drive a sharp spike in sales for online food delivery entities, ready-to-eat products and single-serve snacks. This trend of ‘watching and ordering’ has caught up with people so much that its hard to argue with the prospect of spending an evening at home where one can chill- with on-demand Netflix and Amazon prime shows and chow- on your favorite and luscious on-demand dinner.

Though its impact and progress has been no mean thing as yet, but, the world, in the times to arrive, it appears, would be mightily dominated by food delivery services and streaming services alongside. By the end of next five years or so, it is expected to be more effective—in terms of time, cost and effort—to order literally any type of food one desires and have it delivered to your doorstep by drone or a robot, rather spend another tiresome evening sweating it out in the kitchen.

Or who knows a robust food delivery software might just bring about the next revolution in the food delivery space, automating and mechanizing food delivery services to the extent that you just might not feel like moving into a kitchen for months or still better you discard the idea of having a kitchen at home to cook in anymore.

It would also be interesting to watch out in a short time from now, whether food delivery services get so advanced and transformed that on every online food order you make, you get to watch a newly-streamed show on your subscribed OTT platform or who knows you can get subscription of any of them for three odd months or so.

‘Anything is possible. After all the contemporary world is gradually gearing up and getting increasingly ravenous for binge eating and watching.’