Betting on Weight Loss

Take a gamble

People bet on the horses, football, basketball, and pretty much any sport in between. So why not bet on weight loss? That’s what over a 1,000 dieters in the United Kingdom have signed up for on the StickK website.

The American based start-up was created last year by two Yale professors who wanted to help people achieve their goals and objectives by enabling them to form Commitment Contracts.

Dieters in the UK have been joining up and betting on their ability to lose a specified amount of weight in a specified time frame. If  you don’t succeed,  you lose money.

But you don’t just lose a designated amount of money. The money that you lose is paid to a charity that you nominated when you join up.

But wait, there’s a twist. You have to nominate a charity that you would not normally support – preferably one that supports a cause that you do not agree with.  

Plus a Group e-mail will be sent to your friends informing them of your failure to reach your target weight loss.

Sounds pretty extreme.

Not sure it’s something I’d be willing to sign up for. But there are studies that incentive schemes – usually resulting in gaining some sort of material gain – do work, if only in the short term.

So what do you think?

Would you be willing to bet on your dieting success?

(image source)