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Talking Dinner Plate Tells People to Slow Down While Eating

by Caleb Johnson on January 21, 2010 at 06:30 AM

If you're like us, those New Year's resolutions have already gone out the window. But if losing a few pounds was on your list, there might still be hope. A group of Swedish scientists have developed a device that monitors your eating pace, and chides you if it gets too quick.

According to My Digital Life, the "Mandometer" is an electronic scale that you place underneath your plate. The scale weighs the food, and, as you eat, monitors your rate of consumption. It then stacks that data against the "ideal graph for food consumption," which has apparently been determined by a food therapist. If you stray too far from the graph, the computer will ask you to slow down that fork. The idea is that this system will train overweight people to eat more slowly, thus leading to less food being eaten and more pounds being dropped.

In a study published in the British Medical Journal, participants that used the Mandometer, as opposed to traditional treatments, decreased their Body Mass Index (BMI) by an average of 2.1-percent -- three times more than the traditional group.

Hey, sometimes you need a little gentle encouragement to stick with a diet. As long as the Mandometer doesn't feature the voice of R. Lee Ermey, we'll give it a test run, too. [From: My Digital Life, via: Boing Boing]

Tags: bmi, diet, eating, food, health, mandometer, talking plate, TalkingPlate, weight loss

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