(Picture: Ella Byworth for Metro.co.uk)

Do you struggle to resist a 3pm sugar hit? Are you unable to say ‘no’ to wine? Are you sick of being weak-willed?

If the answer’s yes, then fear not because a company wants to convince you that electrocuting yourself is a way to get thin.

Yep, sort of like a cattle prod, someone’s come up with an aversion-therapy wearable gadget that promises to shock you into breaking your bad food habits (and your soul).

Pavlok is kind of like a Fitbit and has come into existence thanks to a Crowdfunding campaign. You wear it like you would a watch; press it as soon as you feel tempted to stuff your face with a doughnut (or whatever) and it’ll zap a big old shock into your wrist.




It’s classical conditioning – forcing your brain to associate something with pain to curb the cravings.

So take a moment to imagine a world in which every time you saw a Krispy Kreme, you associated it with having your wrist frazzled.

Research shows that negative emotional states do have an impact on what you choose to eat, so it stands to reason that after being put through physical pain, you’d be less keen on chowing down on a glazed ring.

We all have negative associations with certain foods. For me, it’s creme brulee (it was the first thing I ate after a particularly horrendous bout of food poisoning). I have eaten creme brulee since but it’s definitely not something I’d ever choose to eat. I went off Quality Street after eating almost an entire tub as a child while waiting for our car to have its MOT in a local garage (now I always associate the Purple One with the smell of car paint). I really hate mangoes after being forced to eat one every day for breakfast for about seven years.

(Picture: David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

Whatever my vices might be, they don’t include creme brulee, Quality Street or mangoes.

Imagine how much easier dieting would be if you just didn’t fancy any naughty foods? Imagine if you never craved salt and vinegar crisps again?

If you’re the sort of person who is always reaching for the biscuit at 3pm, the Pavlok probably sounds like the dream.

But this kind of device does herald a dark shift in the dieting industry.

It’s one thing to talk of food as being ‘bad’ and ‘good’ (problematic in itself), and quite another to actively promote an instrument of subtle torture to punish folk for indulging in the bad stuff.

According to the New York Times, researchers have questioned the ethical nature of the Pavlok when more comfortable psychological treatments for obesity and overeating are available. They’re saying that education should go hand-in-hand with the product to avoid misuse.

And that’s the thing – this kind of product will definitely be misused because the dieting industry works on a cyclical business model; people are sold quick fixes that don’t work and don’t address the core issues (emotional eating, poor body image) so are forced to keep on trying new gadgets and theories. It’s not too far-fetched to imagine that if these zapper watches become more popular that every school canteen will be full of teenage girls zapping themselves away from the pudding line.

Tricking your brain into associating pain with fatty or sugary foods might work temporarily but in order to truly change the way you eat, you have to go deeper.



When a Dr Xand van Tullenken road-tested the device on The Diet Testers last month, he declared it to be pretty effective.

He took his dad to a Chinese restaurant to test whether the Pavlok could help him crack his Chinese food habit.

‘That is amazing. If you keep doing this and I can’t take this [device] off, I’m done. My hand still hurts. The Pavlock did work on me. That was a shocker.’

But surely there are other ways of cracking habits than actively hurting yourself? Surely learning how to practice moderation is healthier and more fruitful than learning to fear and hate certain foods? After all, what is a life devoid of delicious treats?

The reason so many of us end up eating carby snacks during the day is that our diet is one of spiking and crashing blood sugar; you can even it out by making sure you have snacks which combine macros – nut butter on corn cakes, or protein-rich, low-sugar flapjack balls, for example. It’s literally not will power – it’s your brain panicking about the need for fast releasing energy to combat a dramatic dip. Reduce the speed of that sugar dip and you’ll find yourself being able to say ‘no’ to the more nutritionally-valueless snacks.

Overeating and obesity are to do with a lack of education around nutrition and often have an emotional core. We need to change the way we talk about food; it’s fuel. Sometimes it can heal us emotionally (there’s nothing like our grandma’s home cooking to make us feel loved and warm); sometimes it can help us achieve mad physical feats (porridge and peanut butter before a marathon, always); sometimes it just tastes delicious and helps us release a tonne of serotonin (sugar, sugar, sugar).


Understanding how we utilise different foodstuffs will help protect future generations from gorging or depriving themselves of them, and entering into a world of misery.

Overweight people require coping strategies, better insulin management and possibly even CBT – not DIY electric shock therapy.

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