Evan Forman, Michael Wagner, and Drexel colleagues have developed Diet DASH, a brain training game meant to inhibit sugar-eating impulses. A recent study using the the game examined the impact of highly personalized and/or gamified inhibitory control training on weight loss, using repeated, at-home training. The trial randomized 109 overweight, sweet-eating participants , who attended a workshop on why sugar is bad for their health. The training was customized to focus on the sweets that each participant enjoyed, Difficulty was adjusted according to how well they resisted. They played the game for a few minutes every day, for six weeks, and then once a week for two weeks. In the game, players moved quickly through a grocery store with the goal of putting healthy food in a cart, while refraining from choosing sweets. Points were awarded for choosing healthy items. Half of the participants lost as much 3.1 percent of their body weight over the eight week study.
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