Necklace that knows when food is too much

Scientists have developed a necklace dubbed the ‘diet choker’ that monitors everything that goes down your throat - and sends you an alert if you overeat, the Daily Mail reports.

WearSens is a metal ring that goes around the neck and has a sensor which uses the vibrations in the throat to tell when you are eating and drinking.

The researchers behind the device have linked it up to a smartphone app which buzzes if you go over your daily calorie limit.

It also lets you know if you eat too much of the wrong kind of food.

The device was developed by engineers at the University of California, Los Angeles and so far the tests on 30 people show that the it does work.

But the reaction elsewhere has been mixed reaction and some tech websites likened it to a choke collar, though it does not contract if you eat too much.

Another website, Bustle.com, dubbed it the ‘weirdest (tech) wearable we have seen to date’.

The UCLA team said the WearSens works because each food makes a distinctive pattern of vibrations in the neck so the device is able to work out what it is you are consuming using a piezoelectric sensor, which measures changes in pressure or force.

In tests with a limited menu it has guessed with 90 per cent accuracy the difference between solid and liquid foods - and even the difference between hot or cold drinks.

It could also distinguish between hard and soft foods about 75 per cent of the time, the findings in the journal IEEE Sensors said.

WearSens co-founder Majid Sarrafzadeh said: “Many nutrition methods are based on writing down what you eat.

But this method has low compliance so we wanted to overcome these issues and wanted to do something that a pedometer does for activity”.

In a demonstration posted on YouTube, the device asks for the user’s age, height, weight and their goal such as to lose weight or stay the same.

It will then tell them what they have eaten, how fast they eat their food and gives them advice such as if you miss a meal it mentions how it could leave you fatigued.

The UCLA researchers said that other applications they could see for the device included tracking when somebody takes a pill to ensure they take their daily medicine.

It could also remotely monitor breathing patterns of transplant patients as abnormal breathing may be an early indicator that the organ is being rejected.