weight loss and external incentives

I wrote an entry last week about Whole Foods giving a higher dicsount to their employees who are in better physical condition. I am rerading more articles about othe rcompanies providing cash incentives for their employees to become healtheir, most notably reduce weight. I am certain some of the concern on the management's part is the concern for the individual but I would bet most of it is based on wanting to reduce healthcare costs and missed time at work. Clearly, overweight people develop many more medical problems and are more likely tom drive up the medical costs as well as miss time at work due to illness.

Being incentivized to lose weight from outside sources is perhaps not the most noble reason to lose weight. We shoudl all feel the INTERNAL incentives to motivate ourselves. However, when you watch the ultimate EXTERNAL incentive program such as The Biggest Loser, these people are vying for millions of dollars and popularity for future money making gigs.No small wonder they can lose all that weight. If NBC paid all of you extraordinary amounts of moeny, I have no doubt that there woild not be one week that goes by where substantial weight loss did not occur.

Reality: you are not getting paid by anyone to lose weight and most of the places you work for may even in a clandestine manner, penalize you (less chances for promotion, greater chance of termination) for being overweight. Think of internal incentives (only allow yourself to get that new car, new dress, new jewelry item) that will help ypou motoivate to become healthier and happier.

weight loss and incentives

Thanks Ellen for sneding this very interesting link:

http://www.sphere.com/nation/article/whole-foods-staffers-to-pay-less-if-they-weigh-less/19331110?sms_ss=email

Basically, Whole Foods is putting an incentive policy into place that rewards their employess with a "healthier" status to get a higher discount on foods they buy at Whole Foods. There are several parameters that will be looked at including cigarette smoking, BMI, cholesterol levels. People will be divided into 4 groups based on their cumulative health score on these issues and then their discount will range from 30% in the "healthiest" category to 22% in the least healthy group.

The weird thing about this is that the supposedly least healthy group will be less encouraged to buy the foods that Whole Foods is known for...fresh vegetables, organnic foods etc..the foods rthat may lower the BMI.

Reason for this? Whole Foods spent over 150 million dollars last year on healthcare costs for their workers and the CEO says this will only continue to rise if people do not become healthier..

Your thoughts on this? Mine: We, as human beings, are driven often by incentive systems. Least you doubt that, just see what happened with the Cash for Clunkers program, the lines on Friday at 5AM after Thanksgiving, etc...we LOVE incentives and are motivated by them.

I believe that if outside incentives were put into place for us to become healthier, we would. But how far can this go? Tax incentives if you have a normal BMI? Bonuses at work based on BMI? A very controversial topic and I am very interested in your thoughts.