Being overweight is a huge problem for a lot of people around the world. People who struggle with their weight do so mainly because of bad eating habits, along with other factors, of course. One of the contributing factors to weight gain is how fast people eat.
Implications of eating fast:
- Eat more: It takes twenty minutes for a person to feel full. This means that when we eat faster, we tend to eat more.
- Digestion problems: When a person eats too fast, they tend to not chew their food properly. This can lead to digestion problems, as the food has to sit in your gut for a while and then gets stored as fat. Not good for someone who is trying to watch their weight.
- Acid reflux: Acid reflux occurs when food from the stomach flows up to the oesophagus.
Help is at hand
Eating fast is a habit that’s hard to break. Fortunately, technology to help us break the habit has entered our kitchens and landed on our dinner tables. The HAPIfork, or smart fork as it is known by its manufacturers (HAPILabs), can help you lose weight by monitoring the amount of food you eat and how fast you are eating it. The fork vibrates when you increase the pace of your eating. It does this by recording the time between each fork serving of food.
According to the manufacturers, HAPIfork monitors the following:
- The number of forkfuls eaten per minute per meal.
- The duration of each serving interval.
- The exact time at which you start and end a meal.
You can recharge the fork by connecting it to your computer with a USB cable that is provided. The data is uploaded to an online dashboard that can be connected to the HAPIfork via Bluetooth or the USB cable. The dashboard allows you to see how long your meal was, how fast you were eating and what percentage of the meal time was fast.
HAPIlabs also has a mobile app for iPhone, Android and Windows Mobile, which has a coaching program that will help you control your eating habits.
The fork fits easily into your hand, and the USB component can be removed, making it dishwasher-friendly too.
The way food is prepared, the way in which we eat, and a sedentary lifestyle all contribute to weight gain. The weight loss industry is a multi-million dollar industry. A lot of quick fix schemes are advertised and people buy into them mostly due to desperation. Is the HAPIfork the new weight loss wonder? In time that question will be answered, but for now, it pays to be skeptical.