InventorSpot

Many Americans are constantly fighting the weight loss battle. With so many delicious calorie-filled delights out there, it’s no wonder many people struggle. A device has been invented that could enable people to lose weight by taking smaller bites.

The tiny contraption fits in the mouth and restricts jaw movement so that a person will take smaller bites and eat less food, thereby losing weight. The device is meant to be used for six to nine months.

Denis Mulder, cofounder and chief executive of Small Bite Inc. says, “You can eat anything, but you have to cut everything in very small pieces.”

The idea for this device came from a 330-pound man named Jan Renders who had been overweight all his life, going from diet to diet with no success. His idea was to attach elastics to his upper and lower molar teeth to restrict how wide he could open his mouth.

Renders spoke to a local orthodontist and together they designed a device similar to his idea. After wearing it for nine months, Renders lost 130 pounds and still maintains that weight today. Michael Goldfinger, who runs an internal-medicine clinic at Albert Einstein Medical Center, says that this device for the mouth is less drastic than gastric bypass surgery. It’s “short-term and reversible. If the patient is not able to deal with it psychologically, you just take it out and you’re done.”

This device, installed and removed by an orthodontist, was tested in 50 patients in Amsterdam. Patients wore it between three to six months and lost 10-15 percent of their body weight. The biggest complaint about this device was mouth irritation, which usually went away after a few weeks. The pain was kind of like the discomfort some feel of wearing braces.

I don’t know, I’m all for people losing weight to become healthier, but wouldn’t there come a time when you would get so hungry, enough to drive your mind crazy and possibly rip the device out of your mouth to gorge on some food? I used to do some crazy things when I was hungry and many times I didn’t even realize how much food I was stuffing in my mouth. I think that people should go through testing before they get this put in their mouth in order to make sure they are mentally ready and motivated to lose weight. What do you think?

Source: smallbite