Sensing stress levels, skin temperature, and changes in heart rate, the prototype bra monitors apparent precursors to overeating and notifies its wearer of these habitual snacking triggers via a smartphone app, the Daily Mail reports.
Researcher Mary Czerwinski says by alerting the wearer to their habits, the device urges women to change their ways.
“The rationale for the criticality of monitoring is that it helps patients to be more aware of what is happening in the moment,” she writes in her paper Food and Mood: Just-in-Time Support for Emotional Eating.
“They can begin to make changes to behaviour that may have seemed automatic or beyond their control.”
Powered by a battery and featuring sensors in the bra’s cup pockets, the garment senses changes in its wearer’s mood and streams data to be viewed on the accompanying smartphone app.
Tested by volunteers over a four-day period, the product’s developers said the pilot results were “quite promising”.
“Using log files, we were able to detect around at 75 per cent and [emotions] at 72.62 per cent,” they wrote.
The one setback of the battery-operated sensing system that volunteers reported was that it needed to be recharged every three to four hours, making the process.
The company is also reportedly looking to develop bracelets with similar functionality so that men too can monitor their overeating warning signs.
