Getting Paid to Lose the Flab
As one who is dubious about governments’ ability to deliver useful outcomes, it was interesting to read Jake Halpern’s Slate article Should the government pay you to lose weight?. A somewhat portly mayor in the Italian Alps decided to pay constituents to loose weight and keep it off:
Buonanno made an official proclamation in which he promised to pay his fellow townspeople cash to slim down. Townsmen would receive 50 euros (about $74) if they lost 9 pounds in a month; townswomen would get that same amount for shedding 7 pounds. What’s more, if participants managed to keep the weight off for five solid months, they each stood to gain an additional 200 euros ($295).
Apparently what looks like a stunt may actually work:
Could the answer to this problem really be paying people to eat less and exercise more? According to Dr. Eric Finkelstein, author of the forthcoming book The Fattening of America, the answer is most definitely yes. This fall, Finkelstein published a study involving 207 overweight or obese people who wanted to lose weight. They were randomly broken into three groups. One group was offered $14 for every 1 percent reduction in body weight over the course of three months; another group was offered just $7; and a control group nothing at all.
On average, members of the $14 group lost 5 pounds, members of the $7 group lost 3 pounds, and members of the control group lost just 2. Finkelstein says that the most persuasive data concerned the participants who shed 5 percent of their body weight, which is generally considered to be the threshold for real health benefits. The members of the $14 group were four times more likely to hit this marker than the control group. The beauty of this, insists Finkelstein, is that it is so cost-effective for insurers or employers. “If people aren’t losing weight and hitting their targets, then you’re not paying,” he says. “You are only paying for success.”
Apparently money talks to the stomach as well.
