In the workplace, group-based financial rewards are vastly more effective than paying individuals to lose weight, a paper reports. But the difference in outcomes may derive from the higher payments some group members received. (CLICK BELOW TO READ MORE)
Researchers studied both strategies involving obese staff at a Philadelphia hospital. In one cohort, employees got $100 a month for meeting weight-loss goals. In the other, groups of five dieters were offered $500 to share, but only among members who met the target.
Group members didn't know one another's identity, so there was no cheerleading. Yet after six months, the group-based approach had led to nearly three times as much weight loss.
Obesity remains a big problem, and in 2014 the Affordable Care Act will expand the ability of employers to provide financial incentives to workers for meeting health goals.
"Individual Versus Group-Based Financial Incentives for Weight Loss," Jeffrey T. Kullgren, Andrea B. Troxel, George Loewenstein, David A. Asch, Laurie A. Norton, Lisa Wesby, Yuanyuan Tao, Jingsan Zhu and Kevin G. Volpp, Annals of Internal Medicine (April 2)
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