Lose weight, or lose your job....

Today there was an interesting topic being discussed. They were talking about how a study had shown that people would lose more weight when they had money as an incentive (big surprise). Their next point is what got me thinking. They suggested that this may be a good way for companies to lower their health care cost, by offering incentives to employees for losing weight.

My first reaction was that it was genius, the second image in my mind was of people beefing up before starting a job just for the extra money they'd get for losing the weight, which without proper implementation I'm sure many would try this.

If the companies instead decided not to offer incentives for people to lose weight, but rather to maintain a healthy weight. But what about those who are happy without the extra money and would rather stay overweight? Simple, give existing overweight employees a set period of time based on how much weight they must lose, to actually lose the weight. If within this time they fail to lose all the weight, they will begin to pay a percentage of their health care cost to the company, also based on how much weight they need to lose. New employees would face the same restrictions, and would pay a percentage of their health coverage until they reach their goal weight.

The flip side is the bonuses that they would receive for maintaining that goal weight once it has been lost. Which from my own personal experience, that I'm sure has been shared by many, is that it's much harder to to keep the weight off once you've lost it all (ironic, considering all the work you've put in). And I honestly think making those who don't lose the weight more responsible for their health care costs, while rewarding those who do lose the weight, and try to remain healthy would be the incentive that many need to finally shed those pounds.

Lets just hope that some companies wont go to an extreme and fire those people, like some companies have done in the past to get them to quit smoking.

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