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Rolls of Dough
Should we pay people to lose weight?
Posted Sunday, December 21, 2008 - 7:30pm
After 16 weeks, only 10 percent of people in the control group managed to drop 16 pounds or more, with average weight loss of just four pounds. But the people with money at stake fared far better, with about half reaching the target and average weight loss of 13 to 14 pounds. The study suggests the chances of slimming down improve a lot when you're faced with the stark choice of losing weight or losing money.
Economist Dean Karlan made the same connection when he noticed he was gaining weight during graduate school. He and a friend drew up a contract staking half of their annual incomes on their commitment to lose about 40 pounds over six months. It worked. The experience inspired Karlan to start stickK.com, a place where people can enter into binding agreements that hold them to long-term goals. The evidence from behavioral economics suggests this model works. Talk is cheap when it comes to issues like weight loss or a healthy diet, but Karlan's site allows you to create a tangible reason to follow through. Government and other private entities should take notice.
Monetary incentives that reduce obesity can help people lead longer lives, but subsidizing weight loss is most likely a political nonstarter. Leaving aside troubling evidence of weight-based discrimination, taxpayers will probably look askance at paying people to eat well and exercise. This doesn't rule out a role for government, though. Goal-based contracts could cut obesity without using much taxpayer money. The Treasury could sell special government securities that pay the principle and/or interest only if the bondholder drops the contracted weight by the maturity date, for example.
Perhaps more importantly, the government could create the legal environment for more commitment contracts to take place. It's not hard to imagine the use of voluntary arrangements beyond stickK.com. Banks could offer certificates of deposit that pay interest conditional on weight loss. Marathon organizers could accept deposits over and above the entry fee, returnable only when the participant crosses the finish line. Health-insurance companies could encourage sustained weight loss by adjusting premiums as participating customers drop weight and keep it off.
Losing weight is difficult. But if we can manage to put our money where we'd otherwise put our food, we may just see a drop in the rising rate of obesity.
(Photo of scale by Medioimages/Photodisc)
Comments
Pay me to quit smoking
The article is dumb. much easier to loose weight than to quit smoking but despite how stigmatized smokers are our insurance doesn't even cover smoking cessation methods. F the fat people, it's not an addiction it's a behaviour they can change much more easily than one can quit smoking. But no one ever suggested paying smokers to quit, worse, no insurance company would even cover the patch or a meeting with a hypnotist.
Multiple studies show that
Multiple studies show that yo-yo dieting is actually worse for health than if a chronic dieter had remained fat. Dieting failure rates hover between 90 - 95 percent, with most dieters not only regaining the weight they lost but even more within five years. And as anyone who has lost weight will tell you, sustaining a weight loss is often more difficult than losing it.
As someone who has maintained a weight loss of more than 100 pounds for five years now, I propose this instead: Instead of paying people to lose weight, let's pay those people who sustain their weight loss the longest. Or, here's another novel idea: Instead of paying fat people to lose weight, let's instead use that money to subsidize fresh fruits and vegetables so that they're more affordable and cheaper than processed foods.
pay me to lose weight?
I'm sure I would lose more weight if someone were to pay me to do so. I would also lose more weight if I knew someone would be seeing what I actually weighed every week. That's why Weight Watchers works for some people. Perhaps first we should try some kind of program that allows people to see their doctor for a weekly weight check visit. If insurance paid for it, I'm sure people would sign up.
There are incentives other than monetary ones that might work. Once, my sister and her boyfriend bet a certain sexual favor that she could lose 10 pounds in a month. That was serious incentive because she didn't like to do it! You know, I don't think she lost it though...
That said, I think putting up half your annual income is a bit much! Although, it is a wonderful incentive.
behavior modification
nlittlemoney, I think you are drawing the wrong conclusion from this article.
By linking financial gain to a behavior people are more likely to reach the desired outcome, in this case weight loss. People cannot manage their DNA or shoe size. They can and should manage their weight.
A friend of mine and I successfully quit smoking using similar behavioral modification. We made a pact that if either of us smoked we would pay the other $50 per cigarette.
It required trusting the other person to be truthful about whether they smoked. But the issue for me wasn't about the money. It was about successfully quitting after 12 years of smoking. The $50 a cig just was another tool to battle cravings. I had to stop and think, is it really worth fifty bucks for one smoke (or lying to a friend's face)?
It's been 13 months since my last cigarette.
Should we pay people to lose weight?
Ha ha Brandon,
Would you be interested to see the health insurance companies increase your premium for having a few extra pounds?
How about the next step, increase your premium because you are the carrier of some genes deemed risky by your HIC, in your DNA?
Why not doing the same thing for people who have their IQ lower than a predefined IQ level? (For the ones with a higher IQ it would be quite difficult).
Maybe even increasing the premium for those of us who have smaller or larger feet than most of the population? I am absolutely sure that a study that can link feet size and a heart condition can be put together (maybe even with a control group, not sure if double blinded or not) and the conclusions made to fit the needed thesis.
How about a study linking the associated increased stress because of the long-term exposure to fear for health insurance premium rise over the few extra pounds?
Yes, behavioral economics is so full of ... "wisdom".
So are all those full-of-nothing-useful pseudo-scientific studies conducted by would be scientists with no real world scientific work, only pseudo research work.
We can start something else, pay me in order to stop posting replies ;-)
That would be just fine for me. As long as you keep paying me the virtual agreed upon sum of money I will not write an kind of reply. From time to time I will post something just as a reminder :-)
Oh, these studies and their proponents are killing all the joy in those people who make the mistake of taking seriously such out of reality claims.
Have a fat-free day!