I came across this interesting article about a small Italian town, Varallo, whose mayor has decided to take weight-loss incentives to a whole new level!

Here we thought that trying to sell the idea of losing weight for personal health benefits was motivation enough. What were we thinking?

The mayor of Varallo has decided that all citizens of Varallo who manage to lose a certain amount of weight within one month will receive a monetary reward of 50 euros. On top of that, if individuals are able to keep the weight off for a period of 5 months, they will receive an extra financial reward of 200 euros.

I’m living in the wrong country!

I have to say that this is the first that I have heard of such an incentive program, and I would be very curious to know how successful it has been in convincing people to shed the pounds.

It seems that Varallo’s mayor has implemented a program based on a growing understanding of workplace health and cleverly expanded it to include the general population.

Organizations today, at least in North America, are faced with increasing costs resulting from their employee health benefit plans. Employees are essentially sicker today than they were several decades ago and claiming a higher amount of drugs related to disease management through their workplace health benefit plans.

The workplace health movement is growing and it encourages organizations to look at how they can invest in their employees’ health BEFORE they become sick and require medication on an ongoing basis. It is a concept of investing in the prevention of disease rather than the maintenance of health once already affected by disease.

As any organization or healthcare system can tell you, the cost of maintaining an individual’s health once already affected by disease is significantly higher than investing in the prevention of disease. I can only imagine that any corporate organization would be happy to learn of new ways to save money or increase their profit margin. But I speculate…

I also wonder whether such an incentive program might prove beneficial in a country such as Canada that provides universal provincial healthcare to its citizens.

(I will not profess to having a deep understanding of the Canadian healthcare system, nor will I suggest to have a potential solution to address the currently injured state of Canadian healthcare. In this case, I really am only wondering.)

Is there a way for provincial governments to directly invest in peoples’ health prior to the onset of disease? Would a government sponsored economic incentive program for individuals to lose weight be effective in a country such as Canada?

I realise that this is an oversimplification of the issues affecting Canadian healthcare. However, I cannot help but think that the little Italian town of Varallo may have discovered an incredibly direct and effective way of positively influencing the health of its citizens that Canada may do well to at least look into.

Who knows? Like many organizations who are beginning to see a positive return on their investment, Canada may also realise that a concrete prevention strategy may prove to be beneficial on all fronts in the future.