Give me the money and I'll lose weight

William Atkins
Sunday, 04 January 2009 19:24

Science - Health

A U.S. study finds that weight loss is more effective when there is a financial reward rather than one based on a traditional diet plan.


The article “Financial Incentive–Based Approaches for Weight Loss” contains the conclusions of a randomized trial by American researchers Kevin G. Volpp, Leslie K. John, Andrea B. Troxel, Laurie Norton, Jennifer Fassbender, and George Loewenstein.

It was published December 10, 2008 (volume 300, page 2631-2637) in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA)

They opened up the discussion of their study by saying, “Identifying effective obesity treatment is both a clinical challenge and a public health priority due to the health consequences of obesity.”

Although overweight and obese people around the world are frequently using diet plans and diet fads, there is little research available on whether other factors could be used to develop an effective weight-loss plan.

The researchers identified three theories—prospect theory, loss aversion theory, and regret decision theory—as possible ways to design such an effective weight-loss plan.

Prospect theory is a theory that describes alternative decisions that involve risk; that is, alternatives with uncertain outcomes but where the probabilities of success and failure are known.

Loss aversion theory is a theory that refers to the tendency for people to avoid losses rather than seeking out gains.

Regret decision theory is a theory based on the difference between the actual result and the hypothesized result if another course of action had instead been taken.

Page two continues with details of their study.