A prototype of the “diet bra,” which has sensors to monitor a woman’s stress level

CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER/MICROSOFT RESEARCH

A team of engineers at Microsoft Research have developed a high-tech bra that’s intended to monitor women’s stress levels and dissuade them from emotional over-eating. The undergarment has sensors that track the user’s heart rate, respiration, skin conductance, and movement — all of which can indicate the type of stressful emotions that lead to over-eating, according to Microsoft researchers. The data is sent to a smartphone app, which then alerts users about their mood.

Researchers hope it could be an innovative solution to stress-induced eating, which is a potential contributor to the nation’s obesity epidemic. Their research on the subject, as well as their design for the new bra, is laid out in a new paper entitled “Food and Mood: Just-in-Time Support for Emotional Eating.”

“It’s mostly women who are emotional over-eaters, and it turns out that a bra is perfect for measuring EKG (electrocardiogram),” Mary Czerwinski, one of the senior researchers at Microsoft, told Discovery News. Czerwinski explained that her team tried to develop an underwear version for men, but it didn’t end up working because underwear is located too far away from the heart.