Thursday, December 5, 2013

Microsoft Developed a Bra to Fight Obesity of Women

Sometimes you look at the output of Microsoft and you invariably ask yourself whether they are joking. Just think of the Zune, their SmartWatch or whatever it was called, or their push to abolish ownership for video games with their Xbox One console. The other day, though, I was made aware not of a product that made me pinch myself, but a research paper with the title, "Food and Mood: Just-in-Time Support for Emotional Eating."

In a nutshell, the researchers explored how to detect that someone was about to eat when it wasn't physiologically necessary, and how to keep them from doing so. The article makes for some rather amusing reading, because the researchers put sensors into a bra that would monitor the emotional state of the woman wearing it:
You just can't make that up!


In the paper the term "emotional eating" is used to describe any act of food intake that is not physiologically required. I guess that sounds much more politically correct than "gluttony". I mean, if someone said to Jennifer, "It seems that you are habitually engaging in acts of emotional eating.", she might think that everything is fine. Emotions are the gold standard of female behavior after all. Stay on course, sister! Just consider the "doublethink" you'd have to engage were you to use phrases like that instead of, "Geez, it seems she's about to stuff her face again --- as if she wasn't fat enough already." Nope, it's just "emotional eating". Nothing to worry about.

The hypothesis was that women seem to wolf down all kinds of unhealthy food to feel less depressed better about themselves. You'd really have to commend Microsoft that they not only diagnosed the problem of lacking will-power, but suggested a solution as well. But how does it work? It's quite simple, actually. Those sensors monitor the stress levels of the woman, and if they reach a certain level, apparently people (women) reflexively grab the nearest chocolate bar. Many men complain how unpredictable the behavior of their women is, but apparently this is one area where there is some certainty.

  • Step 1: Can't handle your shit.
  • Step 2: Get stressed out.
  • Step 3: Emotional eating (yay!)

That doesn't seem to make a lot of sense but if I was a woman I could probably "feel" that this was a perfectly plausible behavioral pattern.

Okay, so the little beeper figures out that the female it is monitoring is about to freak out because she realizes she doesn't fit into last year's clothes anymore. To prevent things from getting worse, she might now interact with an app on her phone that is also described in the Microsoft paper. Look at this:


Did the 1st of April by any chance arrive early?

After getting stressed, she then has to breathe deeply. How well did this work? Well, the researchers write that they were able to detect with an accuracy of about 75 % when a woman was entering a heightened emotional state. However, just doing breathing exercises wasn't enough. The women instead would have "personalized interventions" to keep them from eating.

If you thought that a lot of academic research serves no practical purpose, then I hope that this article has helped you change your mind. There is some life-changing work happening out there. The authors even indicate that they have plans to develop devices for men, too. Probably is has to be a cup you'd have to put on the tip of your cock.

By the way, for the study, the researchers were enlisting women who work in their lab. Who knows, maybe they just wanted to see the boobs of their interns.

So, what do you think? Was this real research or did those guys just play a prank on those poor women? Further: do you also "eat emotionally"? (I don't.)

12 comments:

  1. Emotional eating is very real and impacts men just as much

    I've been studying and mentoring in the field of weightloss for over 10 years. I've gone in depth into weightloss from every angle, be it different layman approaches or the research on it. Handling emotional eating is the number one key to succeeding in weightloss in the long-run. Ask any professional bodybuilder (who comes from a fat background) or anyone that's had to go from fat to thin or obese to normal - emotional eating is the only must-handle thing in order to succeed.

    Emotional eating is not only very practical, its also quite well researched. Non-hunger releated eating is the only cause there is an obesity epidemic. Non-hunger related eating is things like eating out of boredom (emotional) eating coz you're sad and you're stuffing yourself to blunt feeling lonely (emotional) or eating because its 5pm and thats the "time to out" and everyone of your colleagues is eating so you don't want to be sticking out by not eating, so you eat even though you're not hungry.

    Not only is emotional eating very real, its what skeptics refer to when bashing diet scams. Watch the penn&teller episode where they bash the fitness/dieting industry, and where they interview and feature Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think by Brian Wansink - a book chock full of studies Brian did and reviewed on non-hunger related eating.

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    1. I follow Alek as well, since I used to be a chubby bastard and still get hung up on the occassional "binge".

      My main weakness is when I'm tired, but I've noticed that I'm getting better and better at it.

      Alek, I've been told (by you, lol) that you're quite ripped. What are some of you're strategies to cope with this? Right now I'm experimenting with flexible dieting but off course it's also a matter of willpower (although that's debatable as well).

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    2. I've never been ripped.

      What I have said is that I've come close to it a few times (blurred sixpack lean with 16 inch biceps)

      I'm still trying and won't give up till I get it, since it's the only major life goal I haven't accomplished yet.

      Currently I'm experimenting with something in between a lean gains approach and a propane fitness approach. While it is super extremely slow, it seems to be working well in that I can create gauranteed deficits while suffering no binges, rebounds, lethargic consequences etc. in fact it seems sustainable for life. If it keeps working this way I should be ripped in 3-6 months, I hope.

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    3. Lean gains ain't sustainable. It works however in the short term. I'm assuming this is only eating in the 8 hour period. I've come to being ripped a few times, normally a few months before I go on holiday. I used to be a fat cunt a few years ago . Then went super big with muscle but blurred abs then tightened up for holidays.

      My approach was that 6 months prior to holiday I would eat moderate amount of carbs, high protein, low fat for first three months (cardio 5x week, weights 5x week) then last three months cut back on carbs to a low amount while keeping fats quite high and protein high , similar to that of Atkins diet. But once every 4th day I'd carb up and eat quite a lot of carbs, .... I'd experiment with green tea, ephedrine, caffeine.

      The only thing I kept strict through everything was my sugar intake, even on the carb up days I'd watch the amount of sugars.

      And after the holiday I would introduce carbs back into the diet so there'd be no rebound effect.

      Thus is pretty much what bodybuilders diets are like.

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  2. Off-topic: Brazilian MMA Fighter Gets Beat Down for Trying to Kiss the Wrong Girl -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxFbpa9c8gg

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    Replies
    1. What a bunch of brutes! It seems there was a lot of pent-up aggression involved, and arguably a strong dose of white knight behavior, too.

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    2. dude watch the vid not only did he kiss a complete stranger ( honestly if I were to be kissed by some random chick I dont like I would react the same-this is harrassment however overrused that word is ) and slapped her in the face after being confronted.
      deserved the beating , mma ape prick.
      this is not white knighting this is justice
      guy fought in a cage and thinks he can do everything without consequences

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    3. I didn't see the "kissing" part. He is lashing out at her, and some parts of the video before seem to be missing. Then, suddenly there is a mob going after him. It seems a lot of the information is actually missing because there is no way you can mobilize a a group of people within seconds. If anything, it looks as if he was set up, and that there was a previous history between him and the girl.

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    4. What proof is there that men are less emotional than women? I would like some proof if this is the case because, from my experience, both can be irrational and both react to the limbic (emotional) part of the brain, instead of (rationally) controlling their emotions via the frontal lobe. There are a hell of a lot of fibers running from the limbic to the frontal, rather than from the frontal lobe to the limbic, which shows you why it is so difficult to have willpower over emotions .. and why men and women alike react like they do to situations that don't require stupid mammalian behavior.

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  3. For a laugh, check out this infield of a PUA along with his commentary to see cognitive dissonance in action. Compare his description of what went down with what actually went down. Hilarious:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Zn9OdxLOas

    ReplyDelete

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