$1 Million to Shed Pounds? The Problem with Weight-Loss Contests

When I first saw this story, I was hoping it was some spoof from The Onion. Sadly, it's not. Here's the gist of things: A "heath-conscious" woman offered Stephens College, a women's college in Columbia, Missouri (and her alma mater), a million bucks if the staff collectively loses 250 pounds by midnight on January first. Oh, and this potential donor will throw in an extra $100,000 if the school's president loses 25 pounds.

I'm sure the donor means well — the Chronicle of Higher Education says she's an 87-year-old woman who is "fit and fond of organic food." It also says that she is incredibly proud that she weighs 117 pounds, the same weight as when she married her husband, which I'm just going to have to guess was a long time ago.

Admittedly, obesity is a huge problem in our country — almost 65 percent of Americans are overweight or obese. However, weight-loss challenges like this one address Americans' growing waistlines in the wrong way. Obesity is such an epidemic because of a host of complex, interrelated issues like our dysfunctional food system, poor health care, food deserts, junk food marketing, an increasingly sedentary culture — the list goes on and on.

So while it's great to see people become more fit, the idea that shedding pounds for a one-time goal (of money!) would help achieve that seems ludicrous. What this competition — and all weight-loss competitions, for that matter —  is more likely to do is make the staff feel really bad about their bodies. Plus, singling out the president is just downright insulting. Also, this is a staff-wide endeavor, which means that anyone can lose the weight, even people who really shouldn't.

A student at the school had a much better idea: "If this anonymous donor really wants to emphasize health and well-being at her college, she should invest in organic cafeteria food or new gym equipment — not by 'incentivizing' her way to a svelte college staff," she wrote.

Her idea is supported by recent research (and a whole lot of common sense). In a New York Times article, Dee W. Edington, the director of the Health Management Research Center at the University of Michigan, said, "If you take a changed person and put them in the same environment, they are going to go back to the old behaviors."

So, losing weight but still having a stressful job and home life with no time for exercise — or living in the same neighborhood that doesn't have a good grocery store and is littered with fast food establishments — is not going to solve any obesity problems. Instead, Edington says, "If you change the culture and the environment first, then you can go back into a healthy environment and, when you get change, it sticks." And that's pretty much what the astute student from Stephens College recommended. If only she was the mighty donor.

Photo credit: John Loo