'Smart bra' detects emotional overeating

According to project partners at Southampton University, the prototype contains removable sensors that monitor heart and skin activity. The data collected is processed via a model to determine the emotional state and the intervention is sent to the wearer via a smartphone app.

M.c. schraefel, a professor in computer science and human performance design from Southampton University helped design the system.

She told The Engineer: ‘There are two types of hunger…one is homeostatic, which means we are eating to get our bodies back into balance: basically, we’re hungry because we need fuel and nutrients. The other is referred to as hedonic, its eating that nothing to do with physiological requirements at the time.

‘There’s an area of work…that talks of emotional eating, where we tend to eat at times of stress. Some people will eat when they get into that…state as a comfort food response - and some people will not eat at all - so there’s a complexity in terms of responses to the same kinds of stimulation.’