A research showed that a new device developed at the Karolinska Institute Stockholm for treating children's obesity is more successful than standard treatments, according to a report posted on bmj.com website Wednesday.

The Mandometer device is a portable computerized weighing scale to provide real time feedback during meal time so that people eat less and more slowly, said the report.

A graph is plotted by the device showing the rate at which food actually disappears from the plate. It is compared to the ideal graph programmed in by a food therapist, the report said.

Professor Julian Hamilton-Shield who led the researchers at Bristol Royal Hospital for Children and the University of Bristol carried out a randomized controlled trial. A total of 106 obese patients aging between nine and 17 participated.

After 12 months, results showed that the Mandometer group had a significantly lower average body mass index and body fat score than the standard care group. In addition, their portion size was smaller and their speed of eating was reduced by 11 percent compared with a gain of 4 percent in the other group. Levels of " good cholesterol" were also significantly superior in the Mandometer group.

"What our study shows is that if we ate fresh, nutritious food that we had cooked ourselves and then sat down to eat and enjoy our meals leisurely -- rather like the French -- then obesity problems would be non-existent," said Hamilton-Shield.