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Cash is a powerful motivator when it comes to lose a few pounds, and the lure of money is even greater when the diet win or lose as a group.
Previous studies have shown that making money as a reward for losing weight is a factor of effective motivation - researchers from the Mayo Clinic recently found that participants with $ 20 per month on the line lost an average of nine pounds in a year, four times the amount lost by those who do not have a cash initiative. Now a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine finds that money motivates groups even more powerfully than it does of individuals.
This is not a new idea - rude as it sounds, the money can be one of the easiest ways to inspire healthy behaviors. More employers use financial incentives to help their employees get fit, and office wellness programs offering cash rewards are likely to continue as the Affordable Care Act Protecting Patients and will expand incentives based on results such as health up to 30% of total premiums health insurance starting in 2014.
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But how cold money compared to other successful weight loss strategies such as partnership with a fellow dieter? And if anyone can melt pounds, how would the two strategies to be together? That's the idea behind the study, which involved 104 obese people who have tried to lose weight by using one of three different strategies.
The first group received no financial incentive, and only provided with a link to a weight loss network online with monthly weight for which they were reminded by SMS or email. The second group had the same information and weighing plane as the first group, but they also offered $ 100 a month if they have reached their monthly weighing goal. The last group has also offered the monthly premium of $ 100, but instead of losing weight on their own, they were placed in groups of five in which all members have remained anonymous. Each month, only members of the group who were at or below their individual target weight could split the $ 500 between them. Those who do not meet their objectives were not part of the split, and no limb weighing their goals, not money.
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After six months, participants in the strategy of the groups lost an average of seven pounds more than participants in the individual group incentives, and 10 pounds more than the group without financial incentives.
Unsurprisingly, the chance to win over $ 100, an option only for those who are assigned to the incentive group policy, was a powerful motivator. "[People] are often too optimistic about their abilities relative to others and thus perhaps expected more success and greater reward than the other group members. Secondly, pending a more great reward would have been strengthened because most of the group did not meet their weight loss goals in most months, leaving a greater reward for those who did not meet targets, "the authors write.
However, four months after surgery for weight loss has ended, participants who lost weight and were rewarded for their loss on an individual basis maintained more weight loss than the other two groups . This suggests that the reasons provided by the group, and the largest cash prize, was not maintained when the financial incentives are gone. However, in a corresponding editorial, Jason Riis, a specialist health consumers at the Harvard Business School points out that it would probably not much to revive this motivation even with a smaller monetary incentives after the study was completed.
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This makes it a potentially valuable strategy for promoting health, and reduce costs, ultimately behavior for some companies and organizations wishing to reduce their insurance premiums and payments, said Riis. It notes however that the financial investment would be easier for companies with a larger number of employees than smaller outfits with fewer workers:
In the current study, the two terms incentive needed guaranteed availability of $ 21,000 ($ 100 dollars a month per participant) if each participant has managed every month. Although triple individual incentive ($ 100 to $ 300) is both more efficient and more profitable than the incentive of the original group would require the program to be 3 times as much money at risk (to ensure payment if everyone has succeeded). This could be more difficult for small programs (and small employers) as the most important programs (large employers).
As more companies implement weight loss plans and strategies based on the reward for improving the well-being of their employees, the authors note that different solutions can be required for different organizations. In addition to cash awards, Riis says there are other ways that companies can encourage healthy behaviors, such as offering healthier food in cafeterias in the workplace and reduce unhealthy temptations such as ATMs in the office. care of themselves.
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