Overweight and obesity
Being overweight is a condition where there is abnormal accumulation of excess fat in the body that may cause health implications. An extreme condition of overweight is known as obesity. Past studies state that more than 2.2 billion people around the world are either overweight or obese (every 1 in 3 adults are considered over weight). Among all countries in the world United States has the most number of obese and overweight adults with around one third of the adults obese and another one third overweight.
Increasing number of adults approach hospitals to seek expert advise. The demand for solutions to America’s obesity problem is evidenced by the market for diet books, healthy foods, weight loss centres, increase in the sales of exercise equipment, emergence of more athletic clubs, and other methods people use to control their weight and remain fit. Many hotel chains offer memberships to their fitness club facilities to non-residents for a monthly fee. Diet sodas and low-calorie meals can be purchased at countless independent and chain eateries. This essay would concentrate on adults who are overweight in the US.
The increasing rates of obesity in America has made the future of many adults gloomy and unpredictable. This has lead to more Americans looking at fitness with great importance. People have started moving towards organically produced food, healthy snacks and regular exercise. However, people find it really difficult to change the lifestyle they have been following for years. They tend to postpone their exercise schedule and healthy diet. Hence through Behavioural Economics by forming nudges a person can be pushed to achieve his targets without much effort and thinking.
Reasons for overweight and obesity among adults
Adults tend to gain weight due to the behaviour of eating. If the calorie intake is more than the exercise or activity they perform they tend to gain weight. The main reason of being overweight could be due to eating junk and fatty foods. Other reasons could be genetic influences, lifestyle, food addiction, hormonal irregularities and so on.
This essay would focus on nudges that are formed to control the behaviour of eating and well as the procrastination and postponement of exercise schedule.
Mental accounting
Past researches (Prelec and Lowenstein) suggest that changing payment methods by which people purchase food would lead to better choices of food type. Regarding different payment methods, mental accounting could lead people to view money allocations in fundamentally different ways. Using a debit card would make people spend money more liberally as they are not using physical cash. By swiping a debit card, consumers do not actually feel like they are spending real money but when they pay through physical cash they tend to pay close attention to the food they buy and the benefits of each item. Paying by physical cash will increase the involvement of people as there would be visible trade-offs. Hence people would make a conscious choice. Thus, individuals may seek more hedonic goods, such as relatively unhealthy good tasting food, when using a debit card in contrast to using cash.
This theory of mental accounting can be used to control the health and fitness of adults by merely changing the mode of payment. Moving customers towards debit cards and credit cards from cash payments can change the way people make decisions.
Nudges in gym membership
Individuals often have problems in controlling their diet. Many people buy expensive gym memberships from premium gyms. A monthly or yearly memberships is preferred by many over paying per visit to the gym even though it would cost lesser.
The reason why most gyms provide monthly or yearly membership is because they exploit the human behaviour that is expected. People go for memberships because they feel pre-commitments are attractive. They think peers will admire them making themselves locked into a virtual decision. People are notoriously bad at predicting their behaviour due to a phenomenon called “time inconsistency”.
In the context of obesity and weight control (which lead to fit and healthy lifestyle), researchers have used monetary and non-monetary incentives in several studies to encourage more frequent gym attendance. Two such studies about this are:-
The gym attendance of three adults who have subscribed for a monthly gym membership is compared. The first person is given information about the importance of exercise. The second person is given the same information and is also promised $25 if he visits the gym once the following week. The third person is briefed about the value of exercise and also promised to pay him $100 dollars if he visited the gym more than 8 times in a month.
Since this study involves monetary benefits, it was noticed that those adults who were promised to be paid for their gym visits showed improvements in their punctuality to the gym. Since monetary benefits were promised in return, there was a change observed in their behaviour for visiting the gym. This can be due to the fact that they feel they can regain the money they have paid for the gym membership by visiting the gym regularly and getting paid incentives. It can also be noticed that those who were paid to go to the gym continued their visits to the gym even after the incentive period ended. This can be because they have got into the habit of visiting the gym on a daily basis and have also got a flavour of fitness. This shows that when individuals are nudged they tend to behave in an expected manner. This could be an effective way to combat obesity as those who visit gyms have lower body fat and less threat from other harmful diseases.
Apart from providing monetary gains, even providing free merchandise coupons or discounts in retail stores would drive in more people to the gym. This shows that any form of monetary or non-monetary gains would motivate people to visit the gym. Providing some form of benefits prevent people from procrastination, postponement and laziness.
Another way of framing this could be done through a scheme where individuals are promised a portion of their membership fees after every visit. If they were regular to the gym without missing a single session they would get back the entire subscription fee. This would ensure regular visits to the gym. An intervention can also be provided by sending remainder messages in loss aversion language.
Sunk cost fallacy
Sunk cost fallacy is when people feel compelled to do something or keep up with something merely because they have paid for it and to get back the money’s worth. In Behavioural Economics, sunk cost is helpful to control people to act in a desired manner to a large extent. As per the previous example of an annual or monthly gym membership, people tend to go more frequently to the gym if they have purchased a membership than paying per visit. This is due to the sunk cost fallacy. Going to the gym just because they have paid an upfront $1000 is good and will provide good benefits. Other examples of positive sunk cost includes personal training sessions, massage sessions, costly exercise equipment and so on. It is also proven that greater the initial investment greater would be the sunk cost effect. It would be harder to ignore a $1000 gym membership than to ignore a $100 massage package.
Rise of popularity of wearable technologies
A study says that 65% adult population of US own a fitness gadget (for example a fitness watch). This is another valid modern day example of how remainders act as nudges and push a person achieve his goals which would otherwise be postponed. These fitness watches monitor the duration of sleep, quantity of water consumed, number of steps a person has taken in a day and forming an exercise schedule. By able to see the number of steps taken in a day and comparing them with their peers motivate people to walk more and increase their steps. The fitness watches also remind (through beeps) a person when it is time to go to the gym, have their meals and so on. This helps a person to lead a healthy life. This shows that repeated reminders are required for people to achieve their goals which would have otherwise been postponed and not taken seriously. It is interesting to note the developing field of wearable technology supports behaviour-influencing techniques. Wearables look like a pretty good platform to measure your efforts to nudge people.
Loss aversion
Loss aversion is a theory in Behavioural economics which shows that people avoid losses to gains. Consider a situation of weight loss where a person A has to pay another person B a sum of $2500 in the event of eating junk food or eating more of carbohydrates or putting on extra kilos of weight. It would be noticed that A would be more conscious of what he eats during this situation as he would not want to part with his money. This shows that through bets a person is more afraid of loosing money than to gain an equivalent amount. The bet is just to create a moment of consequence to disrupt the current habit with an amount large enough to be meaningful.
Slim and fit by design
Each day several thousands of people dine and serve themselves at buffet. Several studies have been conducted to study the behaviour of people how people serve themselves at buffet. Knowing how the food order at a buffet triggers what a person selects could be useful in guiding diners to make healthier selections. The finding from past studies include: First foods in the buffet are taken in large quantities. Rearranging food order from healthiest to least healthy can nudge unknowing or even resistant diners toward a healthier meal, helping make them slim by design. Health-conscious diners, can proactively start at the healthier end of the line, and this same basic principle of “first foods most” may be relevant in other contexts – such as when serving or passing food at family dinners. This theory can nudge people to consume healthy foods and maintain a good lifestyle.
Conclusion
The usage of behavioural economics can help a person to remain fit and healthy without his/her knowledge. Several policy makers have put forth many theories where nudges can be formed to push a person towards following a particular plan to achieve a goal which would have otherwise been postponed. A study in Consumer Research Journal found that people who were prompted to use “i don’t” rather than I “I can’t” were twice likely to resist the temptation of choosing and eating unhealthy or junk food. The researchers believe using “I don’t” rather than “I can’t” gives people greater “psychological empowerment” by removing the need to make a decision. “I don’t” is outside our control while “I can’t” seems self-imposed. It is quite evident that people make economic choices not out of some rational understanding, but because of the nature of human behaviour. The understanding of human tendencies will help is nudging a persons behaviour in the desired direction.