Losing weight is a huge challenge, which many people struggle to achieve every year. Thanks to a new health care law, Americans now have an even stronger reason to try to stick to the diet, besides their own wellness: financial incentive. Under the new law, employers are entitled to ask employees who are overweight and do not do any exercise to pay an increased rate to cover the cost of their health insurance premiums.
On the back of this, some employers are designing weight-loss schemes that use money as an incentive to help their employees increase their wellbeing and lose weight. The thinking is that money and financial loss or gain may be an even better incentive than any willpower-based ones.
Nurses at a leading health centre in Bowie, Md, have confirmed that they see evidence of the obesity epidemic that has taken hold of America on a daily basis. They claim that most patients are either overweight or obese, and require extra nurses to help move them, as well as specially modified stretchers or larger ambulances. The nurses themselves are not unsympathetic to the problem, as many of them struggle with their own weight-related battles.
Long shifts and unsociable working hours can lead to temptations such as unhealthy snacking. In order to combat this, the nurses have entered a national weight-loss competition, where the winning team wins $10,000. This financial incentive has helped them to feel motivated, and the weight loss is recorded through mobile phones, social networking and so on.
Regardless of the potential positive effects of financial rewards on weight loss, there is still a huge failure rate, with three quarters of those who are attempting a diet still failing, even although they stand to reach some kind of financial gain by persevering.
Their path isn’t an easy one. The vast majority of weight loss attempts fail. Despite this, many employers are still using financial incentives to reward employees who lose weight. Due to the lower cost of health insurance, they still end up better off financially.
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