More than two-thirds of employers in the US are paying their obese employees in some form or another to lose weight. Some give health insurance discounts to employees based on target BMIs. Others literally dole out cold hard cash to overweight employees who meet weight loss targets.
Employers are adopting these strategies because they work. At least for a short while. But weight has a way of creeping back on to previously overweight bodies. Ask Oprah. I mean, that’s why researchers are looking for innovative ways to further incentivize people to lose weight.
A research team led by Jeffrey Kullgren (a physician at the Ann Arbor Veterans Affairs Medical Center) reported on one such innovation recently. In this study, Kullgren and colleagues randomized overweight people to one of three groups… (Read more and view comments at Forbes)
