Patients With Eating Disorders Get High-Tech Lesson On Healthy Portions
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A new Swedish weight management center opening in the city uses unique technology to help patients tackle a wide range of eating issues, from anorexia to obesity. NY1's Health reporter Kafi Drexel filed the following report. Michelle Mojica has a strong family history of heart disease, and she knew she had to work on getting her weight under control after an intense workout in the gym landed her in the cardiologist's office.
"At the same time this all happened, my sister got rushed to the hospital and she wound up having to get a defibrillator put in, and she's only 48. And that kind of, you know, scared me," says Mojica.
After trying more diets than she can count, Mojica is getting help at Mando Group NY, a new weight management center in the Upper East Side that uses technology first developed in Sweden.
At the root of their work is the "Mandometer," a portable, medical feedback device that helps train patients to relearn eating patterns.
"The Mandometer consists of a scale and a computer, and the computer measures your eating rate and you are asked to rate your level of satiety," says Dr. Cecilia Bergh, a co-founder of Mando Group NY. "Anorexic patients eat small amounts of food and get highly satiated, so we encourage them to increase their eating rate and to become satiated much slower. The obese patients eat very quickly and do not feel any satiation at all, so we encourage them to eat slower and become satiated earlier in the meal, and thereby they lose weight."
Bergh says a major bonus of using this kind of technology is that patients can basically trust that it is not lying to them. As they start to load their meal onto the plate, the Mandometer starts off by telling them if they are placing down too much or too little food.
While the approach is new to the United States, some clinicians say it could be an effective treatment addition.
"The Mandometer could really be something to help give them some more feedback of what a normal, healthy weight person -- their feeling of fullness, when that would set in," says Alissa Rumsey, a registered dietician at the NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center.
Mando clinic patients also work on progress through weekly counseling sessions and exercise.
The Mando Group is still negotiating with insurance companies to gain access to coverage for more patients. In the long run, the hope to make the Mandometer available for wide distribution and also to counsel patients via online programming.