NCT07290179

Evaluating the Validity and Feasibility of a Smartwatch-based Eating Detection System to Passively and Automatically Detect Eating Events in Child-parent Dyads

• Status: Not Yet Recruiting
• Phase: —
• Study type: Observational
• Enrollment: 35 (estimated)
• Sponsor: Pennington Biomedical Research Center · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 8 Years – 12 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

This study will test the validity and feasibility of an smartwatch-based system to detect eating and drinking events in both laboratory and free-living conditions.

Detailed description

The study will: 1) determine whether the smartwatch-based system accurately detects eating events in child-parent dyads in controlled settings and 2) evaluate the feasibility and practicality of passively detecting eating events in child-parent dyads over 3 days in free-living settings. The study will include two phases. During the laboratory visit, child-parent dyads will wear the smartwatch on their dominant hand and perform activities including eating gestures. These activities will be recorded with a video camera, and the videos will be coded for the ground truth times of eating. In the second phase of the study, child-parent dyads will continue wearing the smartwatch for 3 more days in free-living conditions. In the free-living period, parents will receive personalized Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) prompts reminding them to activate the smartwatch.

Conditions

• Eating Behavior

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
OTHER	Smartwatch and EMA-based eating behavior tracking	Participants (child-parent dyads) will wear a smartwatch on their dominant hand during a laboratory session and for three days in free-living conditions. In the lab, dyads will perform eating-related activities (e.g., eating with utensils, eating with hands, drinking) and non-eating activities (e.g., walking, writing, brushing teeth) while being video recorded for ground truth validation. Parents will receive a 20-minute training on using Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) prompts to record meal and snack times and will respond to EMA reminders during the free-living period. Adherence will be monitored through smartwatch wear time and EMA response rates.

Timeline

• Start date: 2025-12-01
• Primary completion: 2026-11-01
• Completion: 2026-12-01
• First posted: 2025-12-18
• Last updated: 2025-12-24