Wearable Camera Lets Your Dietitian Spy On You

A small, wearable video camera is in development to monitor exactly what and how much you are eating (presented in this month’s issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association).

Dietitians and nutritionists are lied to quite regularly (I’m feeling negative today, can you tell?). When we ask what our patient ate for lunch yesterday, while they actually had a quarter pounder with cheese and a large order of fries, they will respond in one of three ways: (a) The truth; (b) “Half a hamburger with a few french fries” ; or (c) “A grilled tofu salad with veggies from my garden and oil and vinegar dressing.” Person (b) is probably the most common. Person (b) isn’t really lying, they either don’t remember exactly how much they ate or they’ve fooled themselves into thinking they ate less.

Persons (b) and (c) are the reason why we can’t seem to gather accurate nutrition information for clinical studies, which poses a problem for our results. Well, now there’s a foolproof way for the researchers among us to learn exactly what you’re eating. Step 1: Get consent to spy on you from human subjects. Step 2: Attach a small video camera to your body. Step 3: Promise you we won’t use the footage for reality television. Step 4: Edit out the bathroom scenes before presenting data to large audiences.

The new technology won’t be available for widespread use for some time now, so no need to worry just yet…

Image by Anonymous9000

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