I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid you can’t eat that! Dieters could be fitted with body cameras and AI installed to snoop on them to find out their true eating habits in a new trial
Scientists intend to spy on dieters in their own homes using body cameras and AI.
After years of depending on individuals using paper and pens to record – often imprecisely – what they eat and when, experts want to bring nutrition research into the twenty-first century.
However, a recent clinical trial intends to place tiny cameras on a person’s ear so researchers can observe what is being consumed, and AI will subsequently calculate portion size.
Understanding how diet can contribute to the emergence of so-called non-communicable diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease, and kidney disease, is a significant challenge for researchers.
Accurately knowing what people eat in everyday life is therefore crucial.
Scientists plan to use body cameras and AI to spy on dieters – in their own homes (file image)
I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid you can’t eat that! Pictured: HAL, the AI ??from 2001: A Space Odyssey
From September, the ear-mounted cameras will film the eating habits of 50 British volunteers and 150 others at home in Cork, in the Republic of Ireland, as well as in Spain and Greece, as part of a European healthy eating research project called CoDiet.
Experts eventually hope to create a high-tech tool that will provide personalized nutritional advice for individuals.
Professor Gary Frost, Head of Nutrition Research at Imperial College London, where the cameras were developed, said: ‘The methodology we use to measure food and nutrition intake hasn’t really changed much in the last 50 years.
‘It’s still based on self-reported intake, which we know isn’t accurate. We’re collecting a lot of detailed information from people in the trial, looking at blood chemistry and genetics, which will help us understand the relationship between what people eat and noncommunicable diseases.
“Better data will enable us to make better food policy and public health decisions that impact disease and help people live healthier lives for longer.”
A government-commissioned report two years ago by food expert Henry Dimbleby suggested that the number of deaths from malnutrition was 64,000 a year, costing the economy ?72 billion.
Dimbleby warned that there would need to be a major increase in healthy eating by 2032 to meet government targets.
Vegetable and fruit consumption should increase by 30 percent, fiber consumption by 50 percent, while foods high in saturated fat, salt and sugar should decrease by 25 percent and meat consumption by 30 percent.
Prof Frost said: ‘We hope that CoDiet will help people achieve these important goals.’