Rising rates of overweight and obesity are of serious concern in Canada. Until recently, discussion of policy options to promote healthier lifestyles has ignored the topic of direct financial incentives. The idea of paying people to lose weight or adopt healthier behaviours is now attracting study and debate. Some governments and companies are already experimenting with reward programs.

Available evidence indicates that financial incentives help promote short-term change, but there is a dearth of evidence on longer-term programs and outcomes. Targeted incentives for specific risk groups have shown more success. With creative design, targeted use and evaluation, financial incentives for weight loss and healthy behaviour may be a useful addition to the health policy toolkit.

NHS England is set to introduce incentives for losing weight as part of plans to reduce sickness absence in the workforce, it has revealed.

As part of its new five-year plan, NHS England said it will ‘measure staff health and wellbeing’ and introduce ‘voluntary work-based weight watching and health schemes’.

It said the schemes it was planning to use were proven to ‘achieve sustaintable weight loss in more than a third of those who take part’.