U.S. Companies Paying Staff To Lose Weight

dietAccording to Dr Kevin Volpp, director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Centre for Health Incentives, there has been an “explosion of interest” in the corporate sector in finding ways to address the issue. Almost two thirds per cent of American adults are overweight 26 percent are obese but those figures are forecast to rise to 75 percent and 41 percent by 2015 on current trends. In 2000, the problem was estimated to have cost the US economy around $117 billion (£81 billion). Experts are divided on whether bribing fat staff to slim down can work, but it has not stopped companies from trying.

Employees of OhioHealth, a hospital chain whose workforce is mostly overweight, can earn up to $500 by walking, with a pedometer measuring their achievement.

Half of the company’s 9,000 staff signed up for the scheme which has so far paid out $377,000 in rewards. Many have claimed they lost weight as a result.

The electronics giant IBM rewards employees for doing 12-week internet-based health programmes.

The company pays $150 per programme completed because that was considered the right amount to get people involved, said Dr Joyce Young, its health director.

Prof Robert Jeffery, an expert on the field at the University of Minnesota, said companies “are making their best guesses about what might work and giving it a shot”.

Psychologists say people are more motivated by the risk of losing their own money than by the opportunity to earn from somebody else.

Consequently, some academic studies have suggested a “refundable bond” system whereby volunteers sign a contract agreeing to lose a certain amount of weight by a certain date or they forfeit their deposited money.

Research has proved inconclusive as whether such schemes are successful and some experts consider them largely a waste of time.

When Cornell University studied seven employer programmes, it found that the average weight lost was just over a pound. Telegraph.

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