Text messages with financial incentives can help men who are living with obesity lose weight, UK study finds

A brand new research offered on the European Congress on Weight problems (ECO) in Venice, Italy (12-15 Could), and revealed concurrently in JAMA, has concluded that textual content messages with monetary incentives may help males who’re residing with weight problems drop some weight and could possibly be a beneficial various to conventional weight administration packages.

Males who have been provided money for hitting weight reduction targets misplaced extra weight than these not given a monetary incentive, the UK-based Recreation of Stones trial discovered.

Round 26% of males within the UK reside with weight problems. Nevertheless, males are under-represented in weight reduction trials and fewer doubtless than ladies to attend conventional weight reduction teams—and that is significantly the case for males from decrease socioeconomic teams.

Professor Pat Hoddinott, of the Nursing, Midwifery and Allied Well being Professions Analysis Unit on the College of Stirling and workforce wished to discover whether or not the mix of textual content messages and money incentives would assist males, together with these from decrease socioeconomic teams, drop some weight.

She explains, “One of the vital efficient incentive methods within the literature makes use of ‘deposit contracts,’ the place folks deposit their very own cash and lose it if they don’t meet weight reduction objectives. That is knowledgeable by behavioral financial concept, which proposes that individuals are extra motivated by the prospect of dropping cash than the prospect of gaining cash.

“Nevertheless, not everybody can afford to deposit their very own cash, so we designed the Recreation of Stones trial, which makes use of an endowment incentive, the place the cash is put in an account firstly, permitting males on low incomes to affix.”

A textual content message-based program, in the meantime, prices much less and is much less labor-intensive than a standard weight reduction program.

“Males who have been residing with weight problems helped design the construction of the incentives and helped us write the textual content messages,” says Professor Hoddinott.

Professor Hoddinott and colleagues ran the 12-month-long randomized Recreation of Stones scientific trial in Belfast, Bristol and Glasgow. It concerned 585 males residing with weight problems (common age 50.7 years, common weight 118.5kg/18st 9lb, common BMI 37.7kg/m2) who have been randomly assigned to one among three teams: textual content messaging with monetary incentives, textual content messaging alone or ready record (management).

These assigned to the textual content messaging with monetary incentives group (n=196) obtained every day textual content messages, together with motivational messages, suggestions from different males on how they modified their consuming habits and life-style and hyperlinks to evidence-based web sites. They have been additionally given entry to a research web site with evidence-based data on weight administration, details about native weight administration companies and a web based tracker to observe their weight change.

They have been additionally advised that £400 had been positioned in an account for them and could be transferred to them on the finish of the trial. Nevertheless, among the cash could be misplaced every time they failed to fulfill one among three weight-loss targets. £50 could be taken away in the event that they did not lose 5% of their physique weight after 3 months, £150 taken away in the event that they did not lose 10% of their weight after 6 months and £200 taken away in the event that they hadn’t maintained the ten% weight reduction after a yr.

The lads assigned to the text-messaging alone group (n=194) obtained the identical textual content messages and will use all of the options on the research web site however weren’t provided monetary incentives for weight reduction.

These within the management group (n=195) solely had entry to the evidence-based weight administration data.

A complete of 426 of the 585 males logged their weight after 12 months.

The lads within the text-messaging-with-financial-incentives group misplaced essentially the most weight. They misplaced 4.8% of their physique weight (5.7kg/13lb) over 12 months, on common; this compares to 2.7% (3kg/6.6lb) for the text-messaging-only group and 1.3% (1.5kg/3.3lb) for the management group.

Additional evaluation revealed that weight reduction within the text-messaging-with-financial-incentives group was statistically important in comparison with the management group. In distinction, weight reduction within the text-messaging-alone group didn’t differ considerably from the management group.

4 males would want to obtain textual content messages with monetary incentives for one to realize weight lack of 5% or extra and 5 would want to participate for one to realize weight lack of no less than 10%, say the researchers.

The lads within the text-messaging-with-financial-incentives group obtained £128 every, on common, with 27 receiving the total £400.

Survey outcomes confirmed that males within the text-messaging-with-financial-incentives group rated their well being as being considerably higher on the finish of the trial.

Professor Hoddinott provides, “Additionally it is essential to notice that we have been capable of recruit males from a number of populations usually under-represented in weight administration trials. Some 39% of the lads lived in much less prosperous areas, 71% reported a long-term well being situation, 40% reported two or extra long-term circumstances and 29% reported that they have been residing with a incapacity. As well as, 25% of the lads advised us that they had a doctor-diagnosed psychological well being situation and an additional 24% reported low psychological well being scores.”

The researchers conclude that textual content messages with monetary incentives are efficient at encouraging weight reduction in males residing with weight problems and will probably be delivered at scale.

They hope the technique will likely be adopted by the NHS and say that given the massive value of chubby and weight problems to the NHS, the usage of monetary incentives might probably pay for itself in the long run. A well being financial analysis is underway.

Professor Hoddinott provides, “We reached an underserved group of males who seldom participate in well being promotion actions. Weight administration packages are historically intensive, usually with a weigh-in each week or two. In Recreation of Stones, there are simply 4 transient ten-minute weigh-ins over a yr. No intervention is delivered by the employees on the weigh-ins, so minimal employees coaching is required. No referral is required to affix.

“Males and NHS employees actually valued this low burden method and it has the potential to handle well being inequalities. It was a win-win for all.”

Supplied by
European Affiliation for the Examine of Weight problems