Re: Pay the obese to lose weight

[Guest guest]

See figure 2 in the the study. While paying people to lose weight was effective

at 4 months, the average person gained back 50 percent of the lost weight at 7

months. This technique doesn't appear to work very long. Also, it does nothing

to change behavior. Short-term greed is not the solution to the obesity problem

in America.

Tom Fahey

California State University, Chico

RE: Pay the obese to lose weight

You and the rest of us are paying for it either way by the burden on the health

care systems among many other things.

I find it slightly more than somewhat appalling how negative and unwilling to

take advantage of such available technology people are all for the sake of

making moral arguments. No one is suggesting that people should be paid rewards

for the rest of their lives to remain normal weight. But you have to understand

the nature of how such conditions might come to be at least is some cases and

take advantage of available contingencies to create initial behavior change in

some fashion - similar contingency management approaches are used in some drug

treatment modalities - and most often get the same short-sighted responses I

have seen here.

I am sure that moral indignation feels good to those who either are fit or have

made a change and feel self-righteous for it - it does science and those who

continue to need help little good however.

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