Really eating together

Abstract

Eating is one of the most social of human activities; yet, scant attention has been paid to coordinating meal completion speeds. Addressing this challenge, we present "Keep Up With Me" -a novel augmented dining table designed to guide diners in keeping pace with each other. This mechatronical table incorporates a mechanism to gauge the relative weight of food on the dishes of dining partners. Actuators gradually raise the dish of a slower eating partner, and lower the dish of a faster eater by a corresponding amount. These discrete signals may iteratively bring the eating pace of dining companions back into mutual alignment. This table is offered as a contribution toward discussions around the subtle augmentation of dining and social experiences.

Evaluation of Mindfulness Eating Apps

“…Here, we have seen researchers' efforts to reduce food intake and increase satiety by developing adaptive weight (Hirose et al, 2015) and vibrating cutlery (Khot et al, 2020); plates (Sakurai et al, 2015); glasses (Suziki et al, 2014) and colourful lights (Bruijnes et al, 2016;Kim et al, 2016). Other explored technologies in this space include balance table (Mitchell et al, 2015) or smart systems (Nawahdah et al, 2013) aimed to support slow eating, VR interfaces developed to alter the visual appearance of food (Narumi et al, 2012;Narumi, 2016) or automatic dispenser of chocolate balls designed to help selfregulation of cravings (Kehr et al, 2012).…”

“…Such interventions can prioritize guided mindfulness eating meditation and its sensory qualities, as well as other aspects reflected in MB-EAT such as smallness and slowness relating to the food size and speed of eating. For this, we can draw from the growing research on healthy eating from humanfood interaction research (Narumi et al, 2012;Kehr et al, 2012;Nawahdah and Inoue, 2013;Mitchell et al, 2015;Bruijnes et al, 2016;Kim et al, 2016;Narumi, 2016;) as well as the focus on healthy food preparation featuring in some of our reviewed apps. Thus, such interventions can better integrate the three key elements of bodily sensations (hunger, satiety, fullness), emotional triggers (stress, cravings), and healthy eating.…”