Spring sunshine, lighter evenings, the promise of warmer days ahead - what
could be better? But with that comes the sinking realisation that soon we'll
be peeling off our winter clothes to reveal white limbs and out-of-condition
bodies. The temptation is to start totting up calories or rushing off to the
gym, so many of us lack the motivation to keep going. So how would you feel
if your failure to lose pounds from your hips meant that you lost pounds
from your wallet?
Last week, the NHS announced that it is to launch a scheme offering financial
incentives to overweight people. Those who sign up to the 13-month slimming
programme, called Weight Wins, could be paid up to £450. However, these will
not be the first people spurred to weight-loss by cash. So desperate are
some people to lose weight that they are betting their way to slimness.
Diet-betting websites allow you to wager on your resolution to become thinner
and they are the latest fad among slimmers. Fail to shed weight and your
cashflow takes a serious hit. Really, it's a kind of self-punishment: yet
Britons are joining in their thousands.
Kate Borden, 32, from Lancashire, signed up to one of the diet-betting sites,
stickK.com, last November. She wanted to lose a stone in six months. “I just
find it tough to motivate myself,” she says. “The only other time I had lost
weight was when I had a bet with friends one New Year's Eve. The thought
that it was almost a competition with myself and that someone else was the
judge did it for me.”
After studying the “commitment contracts” of smokers trying to quit, two Yale
University economics professors, Dean Karlan and Ian Ayres, began to think
that the same approach might work for people trying to lose weight. Last
year they launched stickK.com (slogan: Put a Contract out on Yourself) to
“motivate people into meeting their lifestyle goals” - dieting, eating more
vegetables and giving up booze - by getting them to sign a financial
contract. The premise is simple: if they fail, they pay. “Simply put, it
increases the price of eating badly,” Karlan says. “We know from studies
that as the price of something goes up, people will consume less of it.”
Karlan has put $50,000 at stake to help himself lose or maintain his weight.
The site is so popular that there are already 32,000 registered users - more
than 1,000 in the UK. Users are set weekly goals and once they have provided
their credit card details, they are charged a weekly sum (the amount is
their decision) if they fail to meet them. Referees - friends, partners,
colleagues - can be nominated to ensure that people don't cheat. Dieters pay
nothing upfront, but if an unsuccessful report is made or if they fail to
submit information within the 72-hour window they are given, then their
cards are debited.
The incentive to succeed can be raised further by selecting StickK's
“anti-charity” option, where your money is donated to a cause you hate. For
example, someone who is anti-abortion could designate a pro-choice charity.
“Negative reinforcement can help some people,” says Karlan. Dieters who
accept the anti-charity challenge report the highest success rates - up to
85 per cent.
If putting up money is not for you, then you could always wager your
reputation. “Post your goal and give us a list of friends' e-mail addresses.
We will tell them if you succeed or fail,” says Ayres “The existence of a
commitment option for ever changes the conversation. If someone fails to
stick to a binding commitment, you are entitled to question whether he or
she is sincere.”
Offering a financial incentive to people struggling to lose pounds is not
entirely new. StickK.com has competition from fatbet.net (slogan: You bet
your ass), in which dieters challenge each other and bet against them.
Several UK-based personal trainers offer a “money-back guarantee” to attract
new clients. Dax Moy, based in North London, operates a no-result, no-fee
policy at his gyms, and also charges new members a penalty fee if they don't
reach a realistic fat-loss goal within 21 days.
“Part of the reason that it appeals is that, in many people's minds, personal
training is potentially endless and expensive,” Moy says. “We want them to
realise that they are paying for a result, not for an endless number of
sessions.” The cynical might dismiss diet-betting as exploiting those who
already feel vulnerable about their shape and weight. And how can it
possibly work? Where the progress is self-reported, surely there are too
many opportunities to lie? Even Karlan admits there is also a risk that some
people may feel they don't need to live up to their own promises, even if
they donate forfeited money to a worthy cause. The consensus among
psychologists and medical experts is that the novelty soon wears off.
“An American review of the existing evidence showed that people with a
financial incentive won't lose weight any more easily or quickly than other
dieters,” says Andrew Hill, Professor of Medical Psychology at the
University of Leeds. “However, it's different strokes for different folks.
Human beings can be very fickle. If you make something too low-cost people
lose interest in it. So, getting them to pay £100 for a diet might make some
people at some times in their lives stick to it. But the chances are they
will get bored of that, too.”
Other observers view it as a route to chaotic eating habits. Susan Ringwood,
the chief executive of an eating disorders charity, B-eat, says that betting
yourself to slimness is “potentially toxic”. Although she agrees that some
people need some external motivation, Ringwood says that diet-betting
websites promote risky behaviour.
“Even if the sites are born out of good intention, it could make vulnerable
people more prone to developing eating problems,” she says. “We know that
dieting doesn't directly cause eating disorders, but we also know that there
is very high correlation between the two. People who develop anorexia or
bulimia tend to be competitive, driven and highly motivated, so this kind of
site might appeal to their personality and it could be a downhill slope.”
Karlan defends his programme, claiming that, unlike some sites, stickK.com
aims to promote a healthy weight-loss of no more than 2lb a week. “We
recommend weekly, not daily weighing and certainly don't advocate extreme
dieting,” he says. “About 85 to 90 per cent of users fulfill their
contracts.”
He also points to a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association
last year, that found that people who had financial incentives to lose
weight were more successful at dieting than those who did not.
Professor Kevin Volpp, a researcher in behavioral economics at the University
of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, compared two groups of dieters who had
financial incentives with a control group. They found that the incentive of
losing or making money was powerful, more so when a financial reward was not
received until the end of a programme.
In the real world, though, things are tougher. So far, stickK.com has
calculated that Kate Borden is 43.8 per cent towards her goal. She has until
the end of May to lose her final 6lbs. Will she make it? “I have had to pay
a few fines of around £15 to a breast cancer charity, but that's cheaper
than a gym,” she says. “I started off really well, but in the end it still
comes down to self-motivation. It has crossed my mind that I could fib and
save money, but I wouldn't let myself do that.
“The chips are down now and I suspect the odds are against me.”
The power of incentive
1 Professor Julian Le Grand, chairman of Health England, recently said that
financial incentives could help to reduce smoking, alcohol and obesity
rates. Some NHS trusts are trialling such schemes. Smokers in Dundee are being
offered £12.50 a week to spend on groceries if they quit, while people
living in some areas of Birmingham receive shopping vouchers if they take
part in healthy activities.
2 In Germany, social insurance contributions are reduced if people attend
services such as smoking cessation, screening and dieting classes.
3 Last year, Professor Gary Charness of the University of California showed
that people offered a financial incentive to attend a gym did twice as much
exercise as those who weren't paid. Similarly, Newcastle University research
suggested that people were almost 60 per cent more likely to increase
exercise levels when given financial incentives.
4 In February 2009, a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine
showed that smokers given financial incentives were significantly more
likely to quit than those who weren't. Nearly 900 employees of a large
multinational company in America were offered $100 for completing an
education session, $250 for quitting within six months and $400 for
abstaining for six months.
5 Professor Rob Harrison, a lecturer in legal writing at Yale Law School, has
used commitment bonds to help students to overcome writer's block and
laziness for a decade. Harrison asks students to provide him with cheques up
to $10,000 in value and to authorise him to cash them if they fail to submit
an essay on time. So far, he has never had to cash a cheque.
