Obesity and individual performance: the case of eSports

The study considers the problem of the inclusion of people with obesity in the context of the growing role of computer-based work. Negative stereotypes about people with obesity still hold even when they are irrelevant in tasks that require little physical activity.

Using data from the realm of competitive video gaming (eSports) and image recognition-based metric of body mass index metric derived from artificial intelligence, we examine the individual performance depending on weight. The sample includes 821 players and 127,533 player performance observations.

For shorter tasks, individuals with normal weight performed better than individuals with obesity. For longer tasks, however, people with Class III (severe) obesity outperformed all others, and their advantage increased with task duration.

Our findings shed light on an understanding of how actually body features are related to objective individual performance in a competitive context.