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Successful dieting requires long-term behavior modification in terms of eating and physical activity. A diet plan is only one part of the solution. Sticking to the plan requires behavior modification that is generally beyond the ability of most people to implement without external assistance.”
An invention, designed to provide assistance on such occasions is proposed in a 2011 US patent application by inventors Tadmor (Teddy) Shalon and Leonardo Gabriel Neumeyer of Palo Alto, California. Their ear-mounted device, called the iWhisper, [pictured above] not only senses jaw-motion but also measures, records and identifies specific ‘acoustic fingerprints’ of various foods (via the sounds they make when chewed). Advice, for or against continuing eating, is then provided to the user via the earpiece.
Notes:
• Details regarding iWhisper, should it become commercially available, may be found here.
• iWhisper should not be confused with iWhisper (a tourism app.)
Also see: The Ig Nobel 2008 Nutrition Prize which was awarded to Massimiliano Zampini of the University of Trento, Italy and Charles Spence of Oxford University, UK, for electronically modifying the sound of a potato chip to make the person chewing the chip believe it to be crisper and fresher than it really is.