Evaluating the Validity and Feasibility of a Smartwatch-based Eating Detection System to Passively and Automatically Detect Eating Events in Child-parent Dyads

Pennington Biomedical Research Center

Status: Not yet enrolling

Conditions: Eating Behavior

Treatments: Other: Smartwatch and EMA-based eating behavior tracking

Study type: Observational

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT07290179

PBRC 2025-029

Details and patient eligibility

About

This study will test the validity and feasibility of an smartwatch-based system to detect eating and drinking events in both laboratory and free-living conditions.

Full description

The study will: 1) determine whether the smartwatch-based system accurately detects eating events in child-parent dyads in controlled settings and 2) evaluate the feasibility and practicality of passively detecting eating events in child-parent dyads over 3 days in free-living settings. The study will include two phases. During the laboratory visit, child-parent dyads will wear the smartwatch on their dominant hand and perform activities including eating gestures. These activities will be recorded with a video camera, and the videos will be coded for the ground truth times of eating. In the second phase of the study, child-parent dyads will continue wearing the smartwatch for 3 more days in free-living conditions. In the free-living period, parents will receive personalized Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) prompts reminding them to activate the smartwatch.

Enrollment: 35 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 8 to 12 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Parents or caregivers (18-70 years) who have children aged 8-12 years
• Child is willing and able to wear smartwatch during school hours (have not restrictions in the school setting)

Exclusion criteria

• Any condition or circumstance that could impede study completion
• Child does not follow a regular eating pattern
• Child eats less than 1 meal and 1 snack in a day
• Child is restricted or allergic to the study foods
• Refusal or unable to use the smartwatch to collect data for the 3-day period in free - living conditions
• Parental refusal or unable to respond Ecological Momentary Assessment prompts