A device that displays a child’s "gobbling" speed can help cut obesity, researchers reported today.
The device, known as a Mandometer, shows a child how fast the calories are being packed in – and can help deter fast eating, researchers said.
A team from Bristol, UK, and the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden, looked at whether a computerised device could encourage weight loss. They recruited 106 obese young people aged nine to 17 years, from hospital obesity clinics.
Half were given the Mandometer to provide real-time feedback during meals, with the aim of slowing down eating speed and reduce total intake. The other half received standard lifestyle advice.
The device is a portable computerised weighing scale that plots a graph showing the rate at which food is removed from the plate, compared to an ideal graph created by a food therapist.
After a year, those using the Mandometer had a significantly lower average body mass index and body fat. This difference was maintained after a further six months. In this group, average meal size fell by 45g, and eating speed was reduced by 11 per cent compared with a gain of four per cent in the other group.
The children also had greater improvements in their high density lipoprotein cholesterol levels.
Professor Julian Hamilton-Shield of Bristol Children’s Hospital, and colleagues, publish the results on the website of the British Medical Journal.
They write: "Childhood obesity is increasing almost universally with little evidence to support any specific treatment programme. Our pilot study showed that obese adolescents eat rapidly."
The team concludes: "Retraining eating behaviour with a feedback device is a useful adjunct to standard lifestyle modification in treating obesity among adolescents."
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