Abstract
We examine the extent to which programs offering financial rewards for losing weight should be adapted to participants’ characteristics. Specifically, we determine whether demanding and highly remunerative programs or – conversely – easily achievable but less remunerative programs should be proposed. We show that financial incentives are more likely to encourage efforts to lose weight if the level of difficulty of the objective and the reward in case of success increase with: 1) the degree of risk seeking; 2) the degree of cross-prudence in health. This suggests that a personalized program based on preferences towards risk and correlation should be proposed to each participant.