The Impact of Financial Incentives on Exercise Habits: Key Insights for Public Policy

It's time for another episode of Exercise Snacks: Bite Size Science. On the podcast we explore the intersection of financial incentives and exercise habits and how these findings could impact public policy. Join us as we dissect the surprising results from a recent study conducted by the University of Western Ontario, featured in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Discover how monetary rewards initially sparked exercise engagement and, even more intriguingly, how exercise habits persisted even after the financial incentives were removed. This research sheds light on the potential for innovative public policies to promote physical activity.

But before we delve into this critical discussion, don't forget to hit that like button and subscribe for our weekly episodes with industry thought leaders and influencers. Also, stay tuned for "Exercise Snacks: Bite Size Science" every other Monday, where you can explore the latest scientific insights directly from the experts.

If you've ever wondered about the effectiveness of using money as an exercise motivator and how it can influence public health policies, you won't want to miss this episode!

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Transcript

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It made sense for us to take a look at what happens when incentives are taken away. Which really gears into my interest of exercise which is the intrinsic or extrinsic motivation aspect of things. It's time for another edition of exercise snacks bite sized science presented by all in one super blend the complete nutrition drink with a full supply of daily vitamins and minerals, and two full servings of vegetables. It's super food for super humans visit all in one super blend.com want to let you know as well as a listener of ATF W we have a giveaway going on for you to win your very own super blend starter kit, and you can head to ATF w.ca to enter. On today's snack size episode we're gonna be welcoming Sean Spilsbury, a researcher hailing from Western University in Ontario, Canada. Now Sean serves as the lead author of a study that offers fresh insights into the relationship between financial incentives and exercise habits. Recently, his work was featured and garnered a ton of media attention, as was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, and it caught this attention for its innovative approach to promoting physical activity. On the episode we're going to explore the findings of Shawn's research, we'll uncover the surprising impact of monetary rewards on exercise routines, and explore how these habits can persist even after the incentives have disappeared. Before we get to it, be sure to hit like and subscribe. We have new episodes of bat FW podcast every Wednesday featuring industry thought leaders and influencers plus a new episode of exercise snacks bite size science every other Monday. I'm your host, Krissy Vann and this is ETF W so happy to have yet another guest here for exercise snacks, bite size science, Shawn, first of all explain to people about your particular area of research and why you kind of chose that as your niche within your specialty, particular area of research. I classified as exercise psychology, even though the degree that I got was a master of arts in the psychological basis, I say the psychology of exercise because for me exercise is medicine. But I'm also very interested in the psychological aspect of of it as well, because I will two majors in kinesiology and psychology. So when I decided to do my master's, I was looking around at supervisors who I would gel with in terms of our research interests. And I came across Mark Mitchell at Western and saw that he had done a bunch of studies groundbreaking studies on the use of financial incentives to promote people to exercise and maintain their exercise habits. And to me that was counterintuitive to what I thought was important for exercise. If you're familiar with psychology, there's a theory called self determination theory. And it posits that, in order to engage in sustained behavior, it needs to be intrinsically motivated. So financial incentives by their very virtue are extrinsic motivators, so to speak. So, to put it bluntly, I was very interested in the fact that he was finding things that were pretty counter to what I would expect or what I would want to expect. Yeah, fair enough. And then naturally, as a researcher, you want to explore and know more. And I know that you made some headlines toward the end of last year with a study that did come out of the University of Western in regards to these financial incentives, it was done through Canada in certain provinces. So talk to me a little bit about what this study was, and what was the hypothesis going into it, to put it in layman's terms for clinical trials or randomized controlled trials that are born in the laboratory, and they're executed in the laboratory. But in this situation, it was a real world experiment, which is why they're termed quasi experiments or natural experiments. The only thing that differs is the randomization element. So you don't have that particular area of control over basically the allocation of who receives a treatment or condition. But in this instance, we were studying a app that you may be familiar with, but it was called carrot rewards. It was released in three provinces. Not all at the same time, British Columbia and Newfoundland and Labrador jumped on board and Ontario followed suit. But at some point in time there wasn't able to receive funding from the provincial government. Ontario. So at that point in time, financial incentives in Ontario were removed. And it's quasi experimental because the researchers did not have any control over who received or who didn't receive the treatment. So in this case, they didn't have any control over the fact that Ontario app users lost incentives. So it was a decision that was made entirely out of the context of the research study, it was completely unplanned. So at that point in time, it made sense for for us to take a look at what happens when incentives are taken away, which really gears into my interest of exercise, which is the intrinsic or extrinsic motivation aspect of things. And our hypothesis was that there would be a clinically significant decrease in exercise measured by step count, after those incentives were removed to get a little bit more granular there. For those that aren't familiar with the app, how exactly did it work for people that were part of this experiment? So you received financial incentives in the form of loyalty reward points, which you could apply to a particular reward program of your choosing? There were several the points came in the form of steps. So there were individual step count goals that you would receive these loyalty reward points for. But there were also team based goals that you would receive these points for. So that was introduced at a later point in time, but it was still a fundamental feature of the app, if you accrued your individual daily step call for a certain amount of days in a row, you would receive the loyalty reward points. And if you were part of the collective reward points, you would have to be teamed up with somebody else who was using the app. And then together, you would collectively meet your step goal. And then if that step goal was reached between the two of you, then you would receive reward points as well. So you go into this. And I imagine probably for yourself of the thought process, incentives go away, the motivation to continue to get those steps in get the workouts in is going to go with them. What actually ended up taking place. Well, what actually ended up taking place was, there wasn't a clinically meaningful, decrease in step count. So in other words, the step count that took place after the incentives were removed was insignificant, for lack of a better word. But the increase that occurred after getting these incentives in the first place, was clinically meaningful, because they were able to reach step step count thresholds. So around 1000 steps per day or more, which are actually associated with clinical health benefits in the long term. So when they were removed, the couple of 100 steps or so that the users decreased, on average, really, at the end of the day was was insignificant in terms of the amount of steps that they were walking after receiving the rewards in the first place. So what does that tell us then when it comes to incentives? Because I'm sure you're aware, I mean, you started this off saying, believing that exercise is medicine. And it's something that we talk about so much here, because the science is there to back this up when it comes to our physical health, our mental health, our social health. However, no matter how much we have this knowledge, we also know that we have a very sedentary population, we have a very concerning amount of physical inactivity, not just in Canada, it's a problem through the US through the UK and many other developed nations. Meanwhile, we have access to all the things that we could possibly need to get moving. So what does this really dial down to as we look into perhaps how public policy may even be shaped going forward? The interesting takeaway from this study is that these financial incentives, they don't have to be part of an indefinite program, or at least they can be part of a program, but they don't have to be given indefinitely, if they're what's going to be used to get people up and moving. So to get the ball rolling, so to speak, you don't need to have them there indefinitely, in order for people to actually continue to exercise. So if you can get people started, and you can take them away. Then these types of incentive programs, they're more financially sustainable for all the all the stakeholders who are involved, whether it be the government, whether it be the private sector, whether it be a public public private partnership. And that, in a nutshell, is huge, huge, I guess, milestone or at least milestone finding. Because the common criticism of these programs is that how do you sustain them, especially if you're looking at it from Public Lands, but it can be done. And from a cost effective standpoint, I'm not the person to talk to you about this, my supervisor Marquez, he actually did a cost effectiveness study on this. But the savings that would be accrued from the fewer health or the fewer detrimental health outcomes, when people exercise more, would certainly or at least would most likely outweigh the cost that it would take to get these people moving in the first place. Yeah, and I know, even in the private sector, there's been a lot of research done in that realm, because it's exactly that when you put it up against what we know, lack of activity causes all these preventable chronic diseases, the subsequent costs and pressure on our health care system, which truthfully, from a Canadian perspective, I don't think we had to worry as much about the pressure on our system in the past that wasn't so top of mind, whereas now, unfortunately, we are seeing like increasing wait times and all these other issues that wouldn't disappear if we got more move, people moving but certainly would be mitigated in this tremendous way. I know that you mentioned the psychology is obviously something that's so fascinating to you. So the fact that your initial hypothesis didn't quite come to fruition, what do you feel the psychological factors may have been that incentive removed? And people still had this now intrinsic motivation to keep moving? Yeah, well, I'm, I mean, an undergrad, in my psychology degree. Whenever touched on a theory called habit formation. And habit formation is it's a, it's a well known theory in other aspects of academic literature, but it hasn't really been applied in this context before. But it basically stipulates that once you're, once you're able to instill some type of behavior, that becomes routine, or routinized, then it becomes easier to execute that behavior later on. So in my, at least, I guess, in my thought process about the results of this study is that a lot of these users or at least, I mean, enough users to show that this was a insignificant decrease, they experienced a, a momentum boost, they started to, they started to exercise more frequently. And after a while, they didn't start exercising for the incentives anymore, they started to exercise for other benefits that go along with it. So personal satisfaction, whether it be with their actual effect, as in how they're feeling in that, in that particular moment in time, but how they feel they feel about themselves. There's many other incentives, so to speak, about engaging in regular exercise, let alone a single exercise session that can really boost or at least switch your motivation from being extrinsic to intrinsic, so become something you value about yourself. More so than about the reward. No, it's actually interesting. I've just been rereading to start the year atomic habits, which I think is an excellent read for anyone that's looking to integrate something like this into their lives. And it is so very true. And with exercise in particular, I think we all know it, if it's something that we partake in, in our lives, once you actually get give it a chance, it does become your non negotiable because you know how you felt before it was part of your lifestyle, and you know, how good you have felt after? And I think it is just propelling this messages of how do we get people to go from that no fit to low fit, and incentivize programs look really promising. And this is really important research to have, because exactly as you say, it would be great if we could just have things like this funded, but to now have a bit of proof that hey, we could do this and it's not even necessarily something that you'd have to keep pumping money into for it to be successful. We're gonna see that shift happen well, I appreciate you connecting with me once again and making this happen. Thank you you as well. You've just listened to the All Things fitness and wellness podcast posted by Krissy Vann This episode was brought to you by fitness a world your fitness your way, be sure to hit like and subscribe. We have new podcast episodes weekly featuring industry insiders and influencers together we're on a mission for everyone to live a life fit and well