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Denzil Gunner from London celebrates his win of eating 41 mince pies during the Wookey Hole Big Eat 2008, the annual mince pie eating contest in Wookey Hole
Voss, now an adjunct professor at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business, uses his 24 years of experience negotiating in hostage situations to help people get what they want out of more every day situations.
He offers people and businesses advice on things like how to ask for better raises at work and dealing with service providers.
Now Voss is advising a health startup called "FIX: Fitness Interactive Experience" on how to use psychology to help people lose weight. According to Voss, being holed up in your house shovelling down food is tantamount to being held hostage.
"Taking hostages or barricading yourself in somewhere is an extreme form of a negative behaviour," Voss told CNN.
FIX: Fitness Interactive Experience develops games that promote health and daily activity. It apparently uses the techniques used in hostage situations to break the cycle of bad behaviour without chastising the individual.
"Swapping out a game becomes a hack to eliminating the negative behaviour," said Voss to CNN. "We're making sure that the person feels comfortable and that we're not doing anything to upset that person or put them off right away. There's a parallel to some of the principles of hostage negotiation there."
According to FIX's statistics, 86% of people who have participated in the zombie challenge game, have reported an increase in the amount of exercise they do.