Weight-loss challenges are popular, but are they missing the point?

Yuki Lei

On paper, Macau’s “Get Active Citywide” Weight-Loss Challenge sounds like a public health success story. Over 3,500 residents have signed up. The Health Bureau (SSM) and Sports Bureau (ID) have teamed up to promote scientific weight management. But scratch the surface, and a troubling question emerges: Are we celebrating participation or promoting an unhealthy fixation on numbers?

Local governments, businesses, and international health organizations are increasingly launching group-based health and weight-loss initiatives. The two bureaus regularly organize the challenge, encouraging residents aged 18 to 64 with a BMI of 25 or higher to lose at least 3% of their body weight within 90 days through scientific management. The response has been enthusiastic, with over 3,500 participants.

But here is the problem: these initiatives risk becoming a race to lose weight – not a journey toward sustainable health.

Authorities themselves acknowledge the need to emphasize self-challenge over competition. A healthy weight-loss competition should focus on “cultivating long-term lifestyle habits” and “mind-body balance,” not merely a battle of numbers on a scale. Yet the structure often sends the opposite message. When participants fixate on hitting a 3% target in 90 days, the pressure to cut corners – through extreme dieting or overexercising – becomes real.

Lose 3% of your body weight in 90 days and win a smartwatch. That is the proposition. Participants must complete pre- and post-competition measurements at designated health centers. Those who succeed receive prizes such as sports watches. On the surface, this seems like a win for public health.

The government’s “Healthy Macau Blueprint” has set obesity prevention as a 2030 target, pushing the shift from “passive treatment” to “active prevention.” The data underscore the urgency: in 2016, 51.9% of Macau adults were overweight or obese – up 5.7% from 2006. Among secondary school students, the rate reached 21.7% in the 2022/23 academic year, a slight rise from five years earlier.

But when you dangle prizes in front of participants, motivation shifts. Some contestants have openly admitted that hitting the target weight is not difficult – they simply resort to extreme dieting and frantic exercise just before the measurement, only to binge afterward. Others have said the reward system helped them improve their health and even influenced their families to adopt better habits. The authorities themselves have had to emphasize that this is a self-challenge, not a race to lose weight.

Yet the competition’s structure tells a different story. With kilograms and body fat percentage as the sole metrics, participants fall into an anxious cycle of daily weigh-ins, ignoring the fact that muscle gain or changes in body shape matter just as much. Research shows a common psychological trap: after prolonged appetite suppression, contestants often experience rebound eating once the competition ends, leading to rapid weight regain and a deep sense of failure.

A healthy weight-loss competition should focus on cultivating long-term lifestyle habits and mind-body balance – not merely a numbers game. While peer support and rewards can boost motivation, the real question is how to ensure progress is made in a scientific, gradual, and sustainable way. Otherwise, these programs risk turning into short-term stunts that do little for long-term health.