Subject: HealthcareFinanceNews.com Placement
From: "Merilee Kern" <[email-masked]>
To: "David Roddenberry" <[email-masked]>, "Merilee Kern" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Oct 2011 10:04:30 -0700

http://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/healthywage-bets-money-weight-loss-success

HealthyWage bets money on weight loss success
October 25, 2011 | Jeff Rowe, Contributing Writer

NEW YORK CITY – Wanna bet you can lose weight?  One company is hoping you’ll try.

HealthyWage, a New York City-based company that designs weight loss challenges and contests, recently launched a new program that will allow people to “bet” on their ability to lose weight using any diet and/or fitness program the customers choose.

Dubbed the “10% Challenge”, the new program gives participants the chance to pay $100 but make $200 if they lose 10 percent of their starting weight within six months. Starting and ending weights will be verified through HealthyWage health club partners across the country, and participants will have to self-report their weight online once per week.

[See also: Workplace wellness programs should focus on improvement, not participation]

According to some HealthyWage partners, participants are wasting no time getting started.

At Memorial Health System in South Bend, Ind., Tammy Vasta, the coordinator of Employee Health, said, “Our staff are really fired up about this program and the incentive. One team of five have already signed up for membership at our healthclub as one of their strategies for losing the weight!”

Meanwhile, Ervin Zubic, senior vice president of fitness services for Lifestyle Family Fitness, one of HealthyWage’s fitness club partners, noted, “During our first promotion with HealthyWage, Lifestyle Family Fitness acquired dozens of new members as a result of the initial weigh-in day. Overall, the promotion drove traffic into our club locations throughout Florida and North Carolina and opened the door for us to connect with businesses and discuss our corporate wellness programs for employees.” 

In addition to its new 10% Challenge, the company offers various other cash rewards-based diet programs that pay participants to successfully make healthy choices. The company’s pioneering BMI Challenge pays $1,000 to those who invest $300 to participate and move from an obese BMI classification (greater than 30) to a normal BMI (less than 25) over a year’s time, while following a few rules and checking in on a weekly basis. 

In a press release announcing the 10% Challenge program, HealthyWage co-founder David Roddenberry said, “Monetary incentives serve to enhance the effectiveness of, and duly complement, weight-loss programs of any and all sorts, especially when paid out quickly like our new 10% Challenge. In fact, financial health incentives are a growing trend, with more than 50 percent of self-insured employers in the U.S. now offering some type of financial inducement as part of their healthcare program.”

For those who prefer to participate in the BMI Challenge for free, without any up-front investment, HealthyWage offers the option to earn $100 for achieving these same term-based BMI goals. According to HealthyWage, to date, more than 20 percent of individuals who committed their own money have won the cash prize and achieved a healthy weight through HealthyWage’s pioneering BMI Challenge.