Wearable Tech Takes on Weight Loss With a Bite Tracker
Sticking to a diet is tough enough, and keeping track of what you eat can be even more of a challenge. But research has shown that people who keep food journals are more likely to successfully lose weight and keep it off. Taking a cue from the popularity of fitness trackers, there are now lots of new technologies in the pipeline that make diet monitoring a little simpler. One such device is the Bite Counter, a band that measures a person's wrist-roll motion to detect when someone is chowing down.
“It’s very easy to overeat in our current eating environment,” Eric Muth, one of the gadget’s inventors and a Clemson University psychology professor, said in an interview with WSJ Live (see video above), citing processed foods and an overabundance of sustenance as major contributors to America's obesity epidemic. The team of researchers believe that 100 bites a day is ideal for men and women to lose weight and people should eat slower, take smaller bites, and chew more.
Food trackers allow individuals to record their behavior during mealtimes and can help users pay more attention to environmental factors — such as portion size and the size of one's plate — that tend to cause overeating.
Just don't forget to chew!
