Doughnuts are fried in cooking oil in New York. Willpower apparently can be bought. The chance to win or lose $20 a month enticed people in a yearlong study to drop an average of nine pounds – four times more weight than others who were not offered dough to pass up the doughnuts. The new study, done at the Mayo Clinic, was released Thursday.Willpower apparently can be bought. The chance to win or lose $20 a month enticed dieters in a yearlong study to drop an average of 9 pounds – four times more weight than others who were not offered dough to pass up the doughnuts.
Many employers, insurers and Internet programs dangle dollars to try to change bad habits like smoking or not exercising, but most studies have found this doesn’t work very well or for very long.
The new study, done with Mayo Clinic employees, was the longest test yet of financial incentives for weight loss. Doctors think it succeeded because it had a mix of carrots and sticks – penalties for not losing weight, multiple ways to earn cash for succeeding, and a chance to recoup lost money if you fell off the “diet wagon” and later repented.
Incentives are “not like training wheels where people learn healthy habits and then will continue them on their own” – you have to keep them up for them to work, said one study leader, Dr. Steve Driver of Mayo in Rochester, Minn.
And if you’re looking to set up a system like this at work or among friends, the key is to make it self-sustaining, Driver said. The Mayo one did that by having people who didn’t lose weight put penalties into a fund that paid rewards to those who did.