Study Shows That Cash Incentive Can Get People off the Couch
Knowing you need to make healthy lifestyle changes like exercising more and eating less fat is, as most anyone knows, a lot different from actually doing it.
Now new research shows that cold, hard cash may help more people make -- and maintain -- such changes.
According to the study, adults were more likely to eat better and spend less time channel surfing on the couch when they kept a digital record of their diet and activity -- and received $175 for meeting their health goals during the three weeks of the study.
The findings appear in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
The new study included 204 adults aged 21 to 60. All ate a diet high in saturated fat and low in fruits and vegetables when the study began. They also got little exercise each day and had high amounts of inactive leisure time.
Participants were placed into four groups, asking them to:
Eat more fruits and vegetables and exercise more.
Decrease the amount of unhealthy fat in their diet and spend less time on the couch.
Eat less fat and exercise more.
Eat more fruit and vegetables and decrease couch time.
