Smart bra combats emotional eating

The study set out to develop an intervention which is activated before people reach for food as a means of emotional support. To develop such an intervention, researchers firstly created the EmoTree, a mobile app designed to gather data about user’s emotional eating patterns. By asking users to log their mood and food intake every hour, the app allowed researchers to understand their emotional eating triggers. The study found that users were less likely to emotionally eat when they felt calm, therefore, researchers proposed intervening with breathing exercises when users felt stressed. 

Researchers then assessed how useful the proposed breathing exercises were in combating emotional eating. While 87.5% of participants said that they were becoming more aware of their emotional triggers, only 37.5% felt that their eating behaviours had changed as a result. Following this, researchers developed the bra-mounted wearable sensor system to detect user’s emotions. The undergarment features an accelerometer and gyroscope that measure electrodermal activity, electrocardiogram data, and movement, removing the need for users to log every hour. This data is transmitted via Bluetooth to the EmoTree app, which alerts the user if a change in mood is detected. Together, the smart bra and app make people aware of their maladaptive behaviours so they can replace them with adaptive ones.