Financial rewards as low as pennies a day are enough to motivate people to increase their physical activity, according to a new study led by Western University.
Researchers from Western and the University of British Columbia used the Carrot Rewards wellness app to measure how small incentives could boost a person's willingness to exercise. They found that earning points equivalent to just $0.04 a day from loyalty programs like Aeroplan, Drop, Petro-Canada, More Rewards, RBC, and SCENE contributed to a 5 per cent daily step count increase among the study's 32,229 participants. For individuals in the study rated among the lower half of the activity scale, the rewards led to a 21 per cent increase in daily steps.
“Until recently, financial health incentive programs have shown promise but little potential for scalability given the cost of the rewards. This study adds to the understanding of how incentives can be delivered in ways that are not prohibitively costly,” said Marc Mitchell, Carrot Rewards co-founder and assistant professor at Western’s School of Kinesiology.
The average age of those who took part in the study was 34 and more than half of the participants were originally categorized as physically inactive. However, over a fifth of those in that category who became highly engaged with the app averaged an increase of 1,225 steps per day.
Participants in British Columbia on average walked 739 more steps per day while those in Newfoundland & Labrador averaged 346 more steps per day.
“Providing immediate rewards in the form of loyalty points for personalized daily step goal achievement, which are easily measured and monitored by smartphones, appears to have encouraged physical activity on a population-scale, especially for higher-risk sedentary individuals,” said Mitchell. “And that’s great news for all Canadians.”
The results of the study were published in this month's high impact journal JMIR mHealth and uHealth.