Bet Fitness

In 2020, all states and territories within the United States have at least 20% obesity rates among adults, with the state of Arizona being rated between 30-35% of adults (CDC, 2021). Obesity is linked to an increased risk of heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, certain cancers, as well as other chronic conditions (NIH, 2018). The high percentage is partly due to the work environment in society, which has become increasingly sedentary with the rise of labor-saving technologies, such as computers. As a result, sedentary jobs have increased 83% since 1950 (American Heart Association, 2018). Our proposed solution to the problem of people not getting enough exercise is Bet Fitness. Bet Fitness is a mobile app that utilizes social and financial incentives to motivate users to consistently exercise. The quintessence of Bet Fitness is to bet money on your health. You first create a group with your friends or people you want to compete with. You then put in a specified amount of money into the betting pool. Users then exercise for a specified number of days for a certain period of time (let’s say for instance, three times a week for a month). Workouts can be verified only by the other members of the group, where you can either send photos in a group chat, link your Fitbit/other health data, or simply have another person vouch that you worked out. Anyone who fails to keep up with the “bet”, loses their money that they put in and it gets equally distributed to the other members of the party. According to our initial survey, this idea has generated much interest among college students.