HealthyWage

HealthyWage was founded in 2009 and has grown to be a leading provider of outcomes-based corporate and consumer weight loss programs. We’ve administered company-wide initiatives at more than thirty of the Fortune 500, dozens of large public employers and hundreds of smaller organizations. Our rapidly-growing consumer programs, including the HealthyWager, have helped nearly a half-million people lose weight. Our approach focuses on various social and personal conditions that appear to cause and sustain obesity, including the prevalence of obesity in a subject’s social network (family, friends), the impacts of addiction, and the widespread abundance of cheap, empty calories. We seek to use the scientific method to systematically and systemically undermine these conditions, and we generally believe that the optimal solution will draw on psychology (specifically, behavioral economics), sociology and technology. Many of our evolving programs take the form of a weight loss challenge with a well-constructed financial incentive — i.e., one tied to specific goals and timeframes and utilizing both loss aversion and reward motivation. We leverage these incentives along with social networks and other tools to help people hold themselves accountable, understand and manage their personal obstacles, marshal their strongest personal motivations for losing weight, and develop a sustainable and healthy relationship with food. Our HealthyWager, which allows consumers to make a “bet” on their weight loss, brings the most significant relevant academic research to market with an innovative funding model.