A multimodal tableware system for supporting mindful eating in solo dining: a pilot study

Promoting healthier eating behaviors is an important strategy for addressing the global burden of lifestyle-associated diseases. With the increasing prevalence of solo dining, individuals often develop rapid and inattentive eating habits, which may contribute to poor digestion, overeating, and unhealthy dietary patterns.

To explore how improving solo dining behaviors can be embedded in everyday dining artifacts, we developed SensEat, a modular embodied tableware system that coordinates visual, auditory, and haptic micro-feedback during solo dining.

An exploratory fixed-sequence within-subject study involving 20 participants was performed to compare the SensEat-guided intervention (SGI) with an app-guided intervention (AGI). Because all participants completed AGI prior to SGI, the condition and order effects could not be separated. Behavioral outcomes (meal duration and chews per bite), self-reported experience (five IMI-informed single-item ratings), and perceived task workload (three selected NASA-TLX ratings) were assessed.

Relative to the AGI session, the SGI session was associated with longer meal duration and more chews per bite (both P_Holm < 0.001), higher Interest/Enjoyment (P_Holm = 0.016) and Value/Usefulness (P_Holm = 0.002), and higher Mental Demand (P_Holm = 0.013). Differences in Perceived Competence, Effort/Importance, Pressure/Tension, Performance, and Frustration were not statistically significant after Holm correction.

These exploratory findings support the feasibility of embedding multimodal eating-pace guidance into everyday tableware. Within the fixed AGI → SGI sequence, the SensEat session is associated with behavioral patterns such as slower eating, higher Interest/Enjoyment and Value/Usefulness, and higher Mental Demand, which highlights the promise and attentional cost of artifact-embedded guidance.