Computing Better Eating For Weight Loss

Can Slowing Down At The Table Help Overweight Children Lose Weight?

(CBS)  There's a tsunami of obesity threatening the health of children. In the U.S., 9 million children over the age of six are seriously overweight. In the U.K. one in 10 children is considered obese.
That means greater risk of diseases like diabetes and lower life expectancy.

In Britain, celebrity chef Jamie Oliver tried to reform school meals, making them healthier, with less fat and no soft drinks.

In some schools, he's succeeded. At others, children and parents rebelled and sent out for the British classic - fish and chips - delivered to the kids through the school house fence.

But what if you could lose weight, or help your child lose weight, without calorie counting or food diaries or even cutting out carbs?

CBS News correspondent Sheila MacVicar reports that a still on-going clinical trial by British researchers that combines exercise, healthy eating, psychology and technology may provide a breakthrough in the treatment of obesity.

"Do people with eating problems eat too fast?" Dr. Julian Hamilton Shield a child obesity expert at Bristol asks. "Do they eat so fast that the message from the stomach telling them that they're full doesn't get there in time because they've already eaten all the food on their plate?"

They're experimenting with a Swedish computing device called a "Mandometer." It was developed to treat people with anorexia and bulimia, but now experts are looking to see if it can also be used to re-educate the overweight - to teach them to slow down.

Fourteen year old Bella Lattuca is one of 120 patients enrolled in the trial. She said she's tried to lose weight before and it didn't really work.

But in one year, Bella has lost 35 pounds and is still dropping.

She and her mom, Wendy, showed CBS News how the Mandometer worked.

Portion size is worked out with a nutritionist. Nothing is forbidden, but healthy food is encouraged

She tells the computer how hungry she is and it charts a line of how fast she should eat, almost like a video game.

If the food goes off the plate too fast, the computer asks her, "Can you please eat a little slower?"

"It makes you eat slower so it makes you feel full," Bella said. "I know there's too much and I won't eat it all."

That's a big change.

"She would sit down and her plate would be empty within probably a minute and a half," her mom said.

Bella is not the programs only success. At 15, Laurence Willshire weighed in at nearly 300 pounds - even at six foot seven inches that was obese.

"Just walking up the road I feel really heavy, and I'd get worn out just walking up the street," he said.

Laurence, who used to wolf down an entire meal in just three minutes learned to listen to his body, realize when he had had enough and lost 60 pounds

"What we think may be happening is that we are training the brain to start eating slower, we are retraining the body to eat slower and to feel fuller quicker," Dr. Shield said.

The doctor cautions this won't work for everyone, but those who do benefit may have learned a lifetime lesson.

Bella Lattuca said she's got a rhythm for eating in her now.

"Make sure you chew and swallow it before you cut another piece," she said.

Slowing down may just help keep the pounds off.