Over 41% of the Dutch population is overweight, a known risk factor for a range of debilitating conditions. Modifying behaviours associated with obesity, such as eating rate, or the speed at which people consume food, could reduce obesity and improve health. Eating rate is a basic determinant of appetite regulation, as people who eat more slowly feel sated earlier and eat less. Unfortunately without assistance, eating rate is difficult to modify due to its highly automatic nature. The current project examines the effectiveness of an innovative product, an augmented fork, that raises awareness of eating rate and helps people eat more slowly — in essence, a fork that vibrates when the user eats too quickly. This product unobtrusively records behaviour and provides real-time haptic feedback on individual eating rates. Moreover, the fork is paired with applications to provide users with visual information regarding their eating rates. This dataset tests the effect of this persuasive technology on eating rates in the laboratory (Study 1 from the project proposal at https://www.nwo.nl/onderzoek-en-resultaten/onderzoeksprojecten/i/37/12437.html). This dataset is used in Hermans, R. C. J., Hermsen, S., Robinson, E., Higgs, S., Mars, M., & Frost, J. H. (2017). The effect of real-time vibrotactile feedback delivered through an augmented fork on eating rate, satiation, and food intake. Appetite, 113, 7–13. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2017.02.014. * shared first authorship

Feedback, Persuasive Technology and Reducing Eating Rates – laboratory study

The four participants that were excluded after testing because their fork data showed severe inconsistencies are not included in the data.The depositor provided the file 'Study1_Data_appetite_23092016' in SAV format. DANS added the POR and DTA formats of this file.