A New Weapon in the Battle of the Bulge

Get ready for Small Bites! I found this clever little device on the front page of the business section in the local paper last week. (Click on title to read the full article.) What first appeared to me as someone’s attempt to recycle last year’s retainer is in fact a nifty little gadget that controls how far you can actually open your mouth, limiting the amount of food you can insert at one time. It’s clinical merit seems based on some marginally relevant research conducted on eating habits a few years ago that showed the slower we eat, the less we actually eat, and the less we eat, the faster we lose weight. Now there’s a novel idea. Oh, did I mention that particular research used “Chicken Nuggets” as the test food, an item with at best a questionable role in any weight management program to begin with, particularly if they were McNuggets. But I am getting off track here, so back to Small Bites.

According to this article and some other research I did, there are roughly 400 million overweight or obese people in the world who could potential gain (uphs, I mean lose) from this device. The basic principle behind its effectiveness is behavior modification and limited field trails in Europe have been quite successful. Small Bites is designed to cause discomfort, yes hurt, if you open your mouth too wide. So by making it painful to eat large bites, Small Bites soon whips you into a toned and svelte chunk of humanity. Wow, I wish I had thought of that.

As one who is considered a pragmatic thinker it is however quick for me to see some of its shortcomings already. First, how do you cut up a Whopper Jr. into small bites while weaving in and out of lunchtime traffic? Maybe this gives new meaning to the concept of “having it my way”. Those donut holes that usually comprise half of a hearty breakfast seem to be too big to inhale now also, can we get those in mini size instead? A trip to the ballpark is never really memorable unless accompanied by a juicy cheese steak and bucket of crab fries. Ok, the fries I can work with, but the cheese steak? Even that big tantalizing bite into a luscious crisp autumn apple seems unlikely if fitted out with Small Bite. And what about the far more important and no less desirable urge for amorous play? I guess tongue kissing is out of the question with this baby firmly in place, not to mention those other “unspeakable” mouth pleasures. Hmm, its practicality seems dubious at best.

As a long time weight challenged individual I guess I can understand the motive. After all, this little device comes on the heels of a pharmaceutical answer for losing weight that promises increased and uncontrollable flatulence and the potential for “leakage” and severe diarrheas, certainly far more embarrassing than getting your fork hung on your Small Bite. Society today does unevenly reward the thin and the thick and we seem to be in an age where quick fixes are preferred over longer-term solutions. Even the most cited comment about that tragic performance of you know who recently on MTV was, “my god, she is fat!”. But what happened to common sense? Of course we are going to gain weight if we eat the wrong foods, in the wrong portions and consider exercise to be the trip from the couch to the refrigerator and back. There are medical reasons for some, and these are legitimate and often complex, but for the majority of the so-called weight challenged majority, it is a simple case of too much and too little; too much of the wrong foods and too little exercise to work off those carbs and fats and other nasty little critters that accumulate on the mid section. Do I really need to wire my mouth shut and depend on an occasionally jolt of pain to remind myself to eat smaller bites?

Or maybe I am really just jealous I didn’t think of this first. At $50.00 a pop, the market potential is over $20 Billion. Good luck Small Bites!