Quit smoking and lose a few pounds – for cash
Expert’s ‘bribes’ bid to encourage healthier lifestyle
SCOTS should be offered publicly funded ‘bribes’ to cut bad habits and lead healthier lives, experts say.
According to research, cash incentives could be the most effective way of encouraging people to make ‘difficult changes’ such as stopping smoking and losing weight.
New mothers could even be included in the scheme to inspire them to breastfeed.
This follows a trial which found women given up to £400 in shopping vouchers to quit smoking during pregnancy were more likely to stop – and their babies had healthier birth weights.
But critics last night said taxpayers’ cash should not be spent bribing people to ‘correct’ their unhealthy ways.
In his research, David Tappin, Professor of Clinical Trials for Children at Glasgow University, found 23 per cent of pregnant smokers gave up in return for £400 in vouchers, compared to only 8 per cent who were offered standard stop-smoking advice.
The incentives trial involved 600 women and cost £750,000.
Professor Tappin said: ‘The bottom line is that for the women who quit with incentives, their babies had a higher birthweight.
‘Babies who are born small can have long-term problems such as being obese when they are older, having diabetes or high blood pressure.
‘There’s an expectation that women should quit as soon as they find out they are pregnant but giving up smoking is not an easy thing to do and most pregnant women don’t.’
The professor believes financial incentives for other health behavager iours, such as encouraging mothers to breastfeed, should also be trialled.
He said: ‘I think these schemes should be done on a wider scale.
‘Things like giving shopping vouchers to women to encourage them to breastfeed and, given the obesity epidemic, giving financial incentives to encourage people to lose weight and continuing to incentivise them to stay slim, should be looked at.’
But James Price, campaign man- at the TaxPayers’ Alliance, questioned such a scheme and said: ‘Money that is spent on these crude bribes is money that is not spent on frontline health care.
‘So the evidence needs to be overwhelming to justify their use to prevent smoking during pregnancy.
‘However, the state should certainly not be using taxpayers’ money to bribe people into correcting every perceived unhealthy act. It’s not acceptable to force taxpayers to pay to encourage people to become less lazy.’
The Royal College of Midwives criticised the idea of offering cash incentives for breastfeeding.
Janet Fyle, professional policy advisor at the RCM, said: ‘The motive for breastfeeding cannot be rooted by offering financial reward. It has to be something that a mother wants to do in the interest of the health and wellbeing of her child.’
A Scottish Government spokesman said there were ‘no current national plans’ to introduce financial incentives to encourage people to adopt healthier lifestyles.
‘Evidence needs to be overwhelming’