Medical professionals have recently put to rest the idea that there is an ideal weight loss diet for everyone. One cause for obesity is overeating, but we do not know what patterns and behaviors contribute to this problematic habit. Defining problematic eating behaviors that lead to energy imbalance is essential for treating obesity. Studies typically focus on a single putative causal mechanism of overeating such as stress or craving, not addressing the multiple features that co-occur with overeating. Hence, the factors that predict overeating episodes remain unknown, as do which of them contribute to an individual's consistency and variability of overeating. Given recent advancements in passive sensing, we now have the potential to detect problematic eating using seamlessly captured physiological features such as number of feeding gestures and swallows, and heart rate variability. Collecting detectable and predictable features that identify overeating will hone in on the patterns that interventionists may optimally target to help populations with obesity understand their eating habits and ultimately improve their ability to self-regulate their eating behaviors. Location-scale models will map the factors that most contribute to habit formation within subjects, providing interventionists with essential targets to guide behavior.
The first aim i s to collect sensor-based and ecological momentary assessment data (to assess factors not yet detectable through sensing) from adults with obesity and apply machine learning algorithms to identify a subset of features that detect overeating, as validated against ground truth of videotaped eating episodes and 24 hour dietary recall. Participants will wear a passive sensing sensor suite and respond to random and event-triggered prompts regarding each eating episode. Then, machine learning will determine the optimal feature subset that detect overeating episodes using Gradient Boosting Machines. In the second aim, hierarchical clustering techniques will cluster overeating episodes into theoretically meaningful and clinically known problematic behaviors related to overeating.
The final aim i s to build statistical models that explain the effect of detectable and clinically-known problematic features on new habit formation. These models will lay a foundation for optimization studies to discover evidence-based decision rules that can guide timely interventions to treat obesity by preventing overeating, and maintaining healthy eating behaviors.
Obesity affects more than a third of American adults. Weight loss regimens rely on self-monitoring, but many people struggle to exercise this skill due to difficulty of execution and small perceived short-term benefit. Wearable passive sensors allow us to learn an individual's problematic eating behaviors more easily. Analyzing sensor data then enables us to identify the essential factors that describe and even predict overeating, and ultimately provide personalized care that supports maintenance of healthy eating behaviors.
