Hypothesis

1. Dietary Issues in America
    a. The prevalence of obesity was 39.8% and affected about 93.3           million of US adults in 2015~2016 [1]
    b. Obesity-related conditions include heart disease, stroke, type 2           diabetes and certain types of cancer that are some of the                   leading causes of preventable, premature death. [6]
    c. The estimated annual medical cost of obesity in the United                 States was $147 billion in 2008 US dollars; the medical cost for           people who have obesity was $1,429 higher than those of                   normal weight [1]
    d. Unhealthy eating and physical inactivity are leading causes of             death in the U.S. [5]
    e. Unhealthy diet contributes to approximately 678,000 deaths               each year in the U.S., due to nutrition and obesity-related                   diseases [1] 

2. Common Causes
    a. Genetic conditions [3]
        i. Vitamin deficiencies
        ii. Eating disorders
    b. Overeating/Undereating [2]
      i. Depression and anxiety coping mechanism
      ii. Socially-induced eating disorders
      iii. Different ideas of food portions
 
3. Current Hit-or-Miss Solutions
    a. Weight Watchers
       i. Weight Watchers: “diet” inaccurately implies temporary lifestyle         changes; differs per person depending their                                        personal mographics and life decisions
    b. Attempts to Track Energy Input/Output
        i. Smart watches (i.e. Apple Watch, Fitbit)             
        ii. Personalized settings

iii. Attempts to track and monitor physical activity regularly (sleep, steps, exercise)
iv. Optional ability to log food intake, and compare to physical activity
        1. Food types and amounts need to be accurate
        2. Requires smartphone

• Why?

The challenge I’ve set out to solve is how to create an easier method to identify and measure amounts of foods (to increase accuracy of logging foods into diet programs like Weight Watchers and smart watch food logs). How can we create a product that allows all to be aware of their dietary health, and  allows all to easily monitor and regulate their food and drink consumption? Can be used to facilitate weight loss? Meant to promote awareness of food intake and effects on health?

• How?
  

Creating a product that enables users to easily identify and measure amounts of foods.
1. This product would not necessarily replace a smartwatch or the Weight Watchers Program, but rather it could function independent of these other products, but also have the ability to function in cooperation with these products.
2. For instance, many people already using a smartwatch do not always also participate in Weight Watchers, and vice versa. However, these two products work well in conjunction. What limits the success rate of both of these products is the accuracy of logging foods that the user consumed. My product would simply alleviate the errors in this data, improving the performance of the smartwatch and Weight Watchers.
3. The product itself would likely have a smart camera system installed on the top and bottom of the bowl to best identify the contents. And it would also have a smart sensor at the very bottom of the bowl to accurately read the weight of the contents. A similar system would be deployed across the other variations of this product, such as, in a mug, or even a flat plate.

• What?

Implementing an accurate method to log foods consumed through smart eating-ware will improve adults’ diet and portion control in the United States.

Design Intervention (what/how): X = Smart Eating-ware
Context (where): Y= United States
Sample (with whom): Z= adults
Outcome (your intended outcome): Effective portion control

• So What?
  

1. Users of the product will likely be surprised by how much the true amount of each item truly weighs. This may lead to frustration, but it will allow users to finally accurately log their foods (which would be done by the equipment itself, without a method to cheat).
2. This accuracy in logging the food will enable more accurate suggestions and results to come out of their Weight Watchers and/or smartwatch usage.