CHECK OUT MICROSOFT'S SMART BRA

Showing an almost shocking lack of sensitivity for gender stereotyping, Microsoft Research has developed a smart bra that prevents women from emotional and stress eating. Microsoft posits that by reducing emotional and stress eating, the bra wearer’s overall health can be improved. The jury is still out on whether stress eating is actually that big of a deal health-wise, mind you — and also whether it’s really an occupational hazard of being female, or whether it’s just a delightful case of media stereotyping.

The high-tech bra, developed by Mary Czerwinski at Microsoft Research in Redmond, is essentially a wearable stress sensor. The bra has two sensors — an EDA sensor and EKG — for detecting when the wearer is stressed out. A built-in computer (in the middle between the cups) then sends an alert to the girl’s smartphone, telling her that she shouldn't get her panties in a bunch. Just kidding — it tells the wearer that they’re stressed out, which is usually enough for them to break the habit of emotional eating. The whole thing is powered by a small 3.7-volt battery, which is only good enough for a few hours of sensing — something that will need to be improved if Microsoft plans to commercialize the smart bra.

An EKG, or electrocardiogram, measures heart rate. The EDA, or electrodermal activity sensor, measures skin conductance (moisture) and movement (respiration rate). All of these metrics can be combined by the on-bra computer for a fairly good idea of the wearer’s stress level. If your heart rate respiratory rate increases, and your skin gets a bit clammy, you are probably stressed. (A polygraph, or lie detector, uses very similar bio metrics incidentally.) This is when the computer sends an alert to a companion smartphone app, which presumably tells you to stop what you’re doing and take your hand out of the Oreo jar.

Czerwinski said that her team did try to develop a version for men, but that male underwear is too far away from the heart for an accurate EKG reading. (Insert lewd joke here.) As for the actual science behind emotional overeating — whether women are exclusively at risk, and whether we should try to curtail stress eating in the first place — the jury is still somewhat out. There doesn’t seem to be any definitive proof that only women suffer from stress eating — that’s just how the media portrays women (who are already under a lot of pressure to look beautiful and slim, don’t forget). People react differently when stressed, too — if you’re over-stressed, you tend to eat less, and generally healthy eaters generally binge on healthy food.

There’s also the matter of whether stress eating is inherently bad for our health, anyway. Recent research suggests that, if you only stress eat on occasion, and your normal diet is healthy, there’s no real risk — plus, more importantly, the stress eating will make you feel better, which is really the whole point of it in the first place.