Mayo Clinic weight loss study

A Mayo Clinic study found that people who were paid to lose weight or suffered a penalty for not losing weight were more successful than a control group without monetary incentive.  Participants in the intervention group were either paid $20 if they lost 4 pounds over the course of a month or had to pay $20 to a pool if they did not lose 4 pounds per month.  If they stayed in the program for the duration of the study they had a random chance to get the pool of money.   The participants were followed for 12 to 36 weeks.

The average weight loss for the incentive group was 9.08 pounds as compared to 2.34 pounds for the control group.

This makes sense as the task of weight loss is similar to the task of manual labor.  Incentives work to increase production when manual labor is involved but do not work when high levels of creativity are needed as noted in the book Drive by Daniel H. Pink. 

Click the highlighted text to access the Mayo clinic online Healthy Weight Pyramid tool.  You are required to input your age, height, current weigh and gender.  The tool will produce a daily goal for total caloric consumption if you wish to lose weight and tips on how to achieve it.   My target caloric consumption was 1,400.