Scientists to use wireless sensors to spy on fat families as America's obesity crisis reaches epidemic proportions

• Scientists are spending $1.7million to monitor what obese people eat
• Fat families will be watched for months via wearable wireless sensors
• Believed cause of child obesity may be in family's 'eating dynamics'
• The study has only recently become possible thanks to new technologies
• Research comes as majority of Americans are now obese or overweight

By Hannah Parry For Dailymail.com

Published: 00:55 EST, 23 September 2015 | Updated: 02:48 EST, 23 September 2015

A new federal study will spy on fat families' eating habits as more Americans are declared clinically obese than ever before.

Scientists are spending $1.7million to monitor obese families via wireless sensors for months at a time, to bring about 'behavior modification.'

Not only will researchers be able to know who is eating what, and with whom, but they may be able to monitor arguments, family upsets and anything else which falls under the category of 'interpersonal stress' around mealtimes, according to a National Science Foundation grant.

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A new federal study is using wireless sensors to spy on what fat families are eating as more Americans are declared clinically obese than ever (stock picture)

Dr. Donna Spruijt-Metz, the director of University of Southern California (USC) Health Collaboratory Center for Economic and Social Research, is one of the project's lead investigators, admitted the project was 'ambitious.'

'But the data that we accrue will be absolutely novel and informative,' she told the Washington Free Beacon.

The research partnership between USC and the University of Virginia will follow between 15 and 20 families every year for up to four months at a time. Participants will don wearable wireless sensors on their wrists and waists. 

The research comes as reports reveal that most  Americans are now classed as obese or overweight with 75 per cent of men and 67 per cent of women.

Scientists believe that the root cause of child obesity may be found among a family's 'eating dynamics.'

Scientists are spending $1.7million to monitor how and what obese people eat with an aim of 'behavior modification' (stock picture) 

By studying in depth obese families' relationship with food, they hope to be able to reduce the levels of childhood obesity.

The research -  which is the first of its kind - had only recently been able to become possible thanks to new technologies. Previously, it has been difficult to obtain totally accurate data on subjects' eating habits.

Dr Spruijt-Metz said the study uses 'in-home beacons, wireless and wearable sensors, and smartphones' to collect real time data from its participants.

'The first part of the study will be very user-centered,' she told the Washington Free Beacon.

'We will start with two-month deployments in five homes at a time,' added Dr Spruijt-Metz who says she creates 'culturally sensitive, evidence-based approaches to promote health behavior change'.

Dubbed M2FED, the study kicked off this month and is due to run until 2019. 

'We are going to learn many new things with this proposal about how family systems function dynamically around food and eating, and how this impacts eating behavior, she said.

The research comes after another alarming study revealed that nearly a staggering 28 per cent of U.S. residents are now categorized as obese - making up an increasing proportion of the two-thirds of Americans who are overweight, the Gallup-Healthways poll shows.

This means they are at a higher risk of developing heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, dementia, deep vein thrombosis, certain cancers, and a number of other medical conditions. 

Do you live in an obese state? More Americans are clinically obese than ever, a new Gallup-Healthways poll reveals. Above, this map shows the fattest (5th Quintile) and slimmest states (Highest Quintile) in the U.S.

Rise: This graphic by Gallup and Healthways shows the rise in national incident of obesity from 2008 to 2014

Another report showed there are now more obese Americans over the age of 25 as of 2012, 67.6 million, than were overweight, 65.2 million.

Worryingly, the Washington University School of Medicine predicted that the rates of obesity would continue to soar.

Obesity has become so commonplace a whole generation of teenagers have become 'fat-blind.' 

Mississippi is officially the fattest U.S. state for the second year running, with a whopping 35.2 per cent of residents obese (down from 35.4 per cent the previous year). 

Other states with 'consistently high obesity rates' are West Virginia, Louisiana, Arkansas and Kentucky - all of which have ranked among the most obese 10 states every year since 2008.

In contrast, Hawaii was found to be the only place to have fewer than one in five residents who are obese, making it the slimmest American state, followed by Colorado, according to the new poll.