Western researchers studied the impact on physical activity after financial incentives were offered and then removed a year later. (Ketut Subiyanto/Pexels)
Western researchers studied the impact on physical activity after financial incentives were offered and then removed a year later. (Ketut Subiyanto/Pexels) If you start exercising for the promise of a little extra money, you may keep up the habit even after the financial incentives are gone, new research from Western suggests. A study of more than 580,000 Canadians across three provinces using a step-counting app showed that even when the rewards were removed after a year, most participants continued to walk almost as much. Using the app helped walkers add about 900 steps to their daily tallies, on average (double for those who were physically inactive at the outset) . When the incentives - $0.04 per day in the form of rewards for gas cards, movie tickets and other perks - went away, step counts dropped by roughly 200 steps, what Western researchers deemed "not clinically significant." Sean Spilsbury "Ideally, you want people to go out and exercise for free. But it's evident that's not the case, given the high degree of obesity and physical inactivity. The fact that monetary incentives can be provided to start exercise, and not be used permanently, is a very encouraging sign," said Sean Spilsbury, MA'21, lead author of a new Western study published in in the Journal of the American Medicine Association's (JAMA) open-source digital journal, JAMA Network Open.
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