, my sister is 6 feet tall, and any time her weight creeps up over 135 pounds (which she considers to be uncomfortably fat) she joins WW until she can get her weight back under 125 again (which she considers acceptable). Yeah, they may clap and say "way to go" but I sometimes find myself wondering what the other people in the WW group think of my sister, coming in at 135 pounds, all upset at being so fat!

Julia Child used to low-carb whenever she wanted to shed a few pounds. I do mean 'a few,' too. She ate carbs freely and cooked and ate French food in moderation and just caught herself whenever her clothes were getting too tight. Then she lost those few pounds and went right back to eating the way she did before. I don't call hers a 'weight problem.' I wouldn't call her a low-carber, either. She knew what she would never overeat - and what she would. I notice she didn't lose a few by going on the cassoulet diet or the Galette de Bregagne (Buckwheat Crepes) diet!

I don't have a problem with Weight Watcher's success as a company. (AGAIN) I have a problem with the perception that it's a better diet than others. It's not. A lot of diets have been around a long time. It doesn't make them better than newer diets. It's the same with low carb. Just because it's been around a lot longer than WW doesn't make it a better diet than WW.

But even so, the WW of previous decades has no resemblance to the WW of today other than things having nothing to do with the nutritional advice given (meetings, merchandise, lifetime memberships). That in of itself doesn't mean that WW is giving faulty advice now; it means that the quality of the advice given in the 1960s-1990s should have no bearing in the determination of the quality of the advice given now.




Sorry, where did I say that people went to WW against their will? The pervasiveness of the message that WW is some sort of elder, moral, benevolent spokesman in the diet wars and that it is marketed to doctors...not because it is better, but because it is perceived as better.



Great job. I am glad the support has worked for you.



I don't have "a negative, disparaging attitude about their weight loss" (or anyone else's for that matter). What you seem to be confusing here is a criticism of the company and a criticism of dieters. You've taken people's issues with WW very personally, and without that confusion, I doubt this conversation would have gone as it did. What does what I am saying about the company have to do with you and your personal weight loss? How is that "correcting" you about whether the program works for you. It's not because you're the one that has made this into a personal attack on YOU and YOUR weight loss, when it's not even close.




Whether or not she didn't click on the PDF or not, she used another, similar study with the same range of BMIs. Whether or not she read the newer study has absolutely no bearing on whether her reasoning was faulty or her argument unsound. Whether or not your personal experience meshes with the studies is likewise irrelevant. Anecdotal experience is great, but usually feels more important than it actually is.

And what she said has nothing to do with whether or not the diet works in clinical settings, but the actual success rate with WW supplied success stories and her (very valid) point about using data from people with love handles to lose to determine what's best for people with another person worth of weight to lose. And she seems to use it to justify an anti-diet stance, but don't be confused that that makes what she is saying wrong or it means that it is reasonable to conclude from what she pointed out that all dieting (including WW) is fruitless.

Wow!! That's a bmi of 17. I can't believe they actually let her join to get that low. I'm just under 6 feet, and would look super emaciated and extremely unhealthy at that weight!!

Despite the support for Weight Watchers in this thread, I think it's pretty clear they are not as easygoing as has been claimed. They are extremely hostile towards lowcarbing, for instance; even though low carbing would have at least a good a record of people being successful, no?

In my experience, any plan that winds up with people starving is a bad plan. And it's not going to work. But when people complain about WW, and they do, it's about how hungry they are.

That's why they fall off, and that's why they have such a hard time returning.

In my experience, WW does not address the hunger issue at all.

The people who have the perception that WW is a better diet are usually people who have tried other diets - including Atkins, by the way!

I think this thread is an example of how people go to low-carbing because WW didn't work for them.

People who do South Beach because the Atkins diet doesn't work for them or go to Overeaters Anonymous because they like it better than WW have made the same kinds of personal judgments. South Beach, WW, Overeaters Anonymous, Atkins, Protein Power: all the people who go with their plans, find success, and find that they can maintain - these are all diets they live with. They all work by lowering calories.

WW has always meant counting and tracking. It has become extremely flexible in its latest point system but other than that, it's the same-old, same-old. The radical difference is the flexibility. Which is all good, in my opinion. There are people at WW who find that flexibility doesn't work for them. They have the option of doing the 'old WW' more structured plan and WW is flexible enough to do that.

The quality of the advice given in the 60s was to stick to the structure they had. But the quality of advice in the 60s works for the people who still want to use that today - and WW lets them, as I said. That plan hasn't been found to be wrong.

When I say that no one goes to WW against their will, I'm making a point that has nothing to do with you. I can't emphasize enough that the success of WW comes from people who want to do WW, appreciate WW (despite having done WW before and lost, regained, lost and not liked it at one point or another - which was my experience), have seen fantastic success from WW (as I said, I often hear people say that watching a co-worker lose weight and then finding out that they lost it with the WW diet prompts them to come to WW), and if the diet works for them, great! This success WW enjoys, and its reputation, is richly deserved for that reason.

Moggsy, you seem to think that the problem is that WW is perceived as being better and all these people and their successes are ghosts or fictitious. I realize that this forum is full of people who couldn't lose weight and then low-carbed and lost weight in a way that makes them happy. WW works the exact same way, it's just that a whole lot more people do it, have done it, and the organization itself is well-run.

The idea that I can go to WW and low-carb (or not, depending on my experiences with food and how it works with my body) is a fantastic plus to WW. If I want to go 'vegetarian' for 6 months, I can do it at WW. If I then want to return to the way I'm eating now, I can do that at WW.

So, whether it's perceived as better or not, we disagree about whether it really is better. But the perception is there - because of its success. Nothing succeeds like success!

This thread has not concentrated on discussing the WW company and how it runs a business. If your beef is with big corporations, I'll bet you build and maintain your own car. If this thread were about business, it would be about advertising, products, books, marketing foods - so please, talk about the diet section of any supermarket, the 'diet shelf' in the typical bookstore, the commercials on television. I don't see a problem with any of that, when it comes to WW. I used to buy Atkins Shakes, never bought their bars. I went from Atkins Shakes to Muscle Milk to making my own protein smoothies. I haven't bought a WW product since buying some frozen meals years ago. Their products are really very good, though.

But this thread has not been a discussion about the company. Atkins sells products. Atkins sells books. So? Why does that aspect seem odious?

You think you have been criticizing a company, not the dieters? No, I think you have been criticizing a company because it has an approach you disagree with. As I said before, good luck with that. And the people whose success you CLAIM not to have a problem with : without the many people who go to meetings and live with the plan, it wouldn't be anything at all - except a company like Atkins, selling customized diet foods. It IS the people who go and succeed that make it a success.

This thread has been about how unfair it is that what people think is a crappy diet - because it didn't work for them - is in reality a successful way of dieting for many people who actually commit to the services of a company that helps them diet that way.

I think that if you go back and read your remarks, you do sound negative. And angry about the success of a plan you don't think deserves it. If truly, your problem is that WW is a company, then I can't really help you there. You probably do drive a car you built yourself.

My problem with the blogger was that she is sloppy and reached for an old study rather than clicking on the PDF tab. She's truly looking for a 'flawed study' to hold up as an example and bolster her own opinion about what she doesn't like. She is not looking to see what is out there in the constant stream of studies about just this kind of thing - if she were, she'd have to include a lot more.

That there are badly conducted studies, I don't disagree with. That there are biased studies, I don't disagree with (which is why I thought the Westman study was funny, on the heels of reading Eades blog!)

The blogger I thought was too lazy to click on the PDF tab doesn't spend enough time looking out for studies to even know that the Cambridge Journal is a website that gives access without charging. But worse than that: anyone connected with a study for WW or Atkins or any diet plan that is promoted is going to give free access to their article. Period. They want it to be read by everybody and saved. It's not going to be hidden behind an interface with a price on it, only to be ready by obesity experts. Found that out myself, just from poking around in a ton of those studies.

I haven't taken the criticism about WW personally, Moggsy. I am sure you have understood that I am a current member of WW and have been going for more than a year now on a regular basis now that I have found a meeting that I like. I have asked myself why I have bothered to continue to answer complaints about WW - as if I'm their personal defender. I don't have to be! But Jeeze, I actually go to the meetings. I actually know the diet. If anyone's going to complain that it's too hard or I'm too hungry or they won't let me eat the way I want to eat, it should be me, of all people.

I don't have stock in the company - I have stock in Wendy's and McDonald's. I take the same attitude about fast food that I take about diet plans. It's a marketplace. You succeed when you're successful. If your burgers don't taste good, then go out of business. If you have a good french fry, long may you prosper! If people lose weight at WW, it's all good, all around, all the time - yay for WW.

Werebear,

Maybe you are going to WW now and you do have a leader who is strange in this respect. Leaders don't criticize diet plans. They focus on the positive, not disparaging other plans, just talking about the WW plan. Because there is a lot to talk about and it looks to me like it is all behavioral. That will change for awhile when they introduce the new plan, because they will be explaining it.

However, I DO go to WW now and I do low-carb. There is never a problem with that. So, here's first-hand experience, now, telling you that WW is that flexible that they don't have an axe to grind.

The odds that I go to the only meeting that has that attitude are extremely low. How low? The leaders all follow the same topics each week, all across the country. You never 'fall out of step' by going to another meeting because they do this. Other diets, criticitisms of food plans - I have never heard that mentioned even once. Even when I went to a different meeting, with a different leader who had a different style.

And you bring up a VERY good point: WW computerized everything so you know who's lost weight and over what amount of time and how often they attending meetings, etc. Our group (my meeting leader's group who attend her meetings) have lost over 2000 pounds, a meaningless number to me but the kind of number a computer can easily tally. We will never know how successful the low-carb diet is unless there is some way to have that data to access. I think doctors should be a source - they weigh people at their physicals and can ask them, 'So how did you lose that weight?'

My sister does too! (at least in my opinion). Yeah, I could hardly believe they would let her join also. But they told her that they will take anyone who wants to lose at least 10 pounds. That makes it sound as if she weighed 100 pounds and wanted to get to 90 they would take her also! But even at her "fat" weight, when she joins WW, she is at a BMI of 18.3 which is still considered "underweight" - so I do have trouble understanding why WW would accept her, unless it's only about the money.

WW throughout the 70's was based on a completely flawed premise...that fat restriction and calorie reduction will lead to health and weight loss. It lead to my mom being food obsessed, not losing weight, and a destroyed gall bladder.

it also led to me restricting fat and calories as a teen which helped me become quite obese.

They suck.

I am not sure why you think you have the information to make such a generalisation, but you've made a lot of claims in this thread you are in no position to make.



Even if this were true (which it sort of isn't) a lot of plans are about counting and tracking. It doesn't mean that the nutritional advice given is valid. If you follow your logic, the Cookie diet should work as well as WW because it involves counting cookies. The Cabbage Soup Diet should be given the same gravitas as WW because it involves a structured meal plan and rules.




Commercial success for WW as a whole and personal dieters' individual success are two different things. Just because something is popular doesn't mean that the advice given is good advice, that their customers succeed at their goals, or those who do are those who need the most help. WW only has to ensure people think it's working for a lot of people, something that WW is brilliant at doing. You seem to be labouring under the fallacy (among others) that just because you feel you're succeeding and you know others who do well with the plan, that your sort of experience is the reason WW is respected. It's not. If it were a better plan than others, it would perform better in clinical trials and it would not need to place the "results not typical" in the adverts when they show someone who has lost more than a few pounds.



Nope, never said that.




Nope, nope, and nope. I have no problems with corporations. I recognise them for what they are, and become really sad when others don't. I've not owned a car in a decade out of personal choice. When I did own one, I didn't build it, but since I don't hate corporations, I really am not guilty of your implication of hypocrisy. I don't think GM is a warm and fuzzy enterprise that helps people. Its job isn't even to provide cars for the public. Its job is to make profit for their stockholders. If they can do that in a way that means they actually don't need to provide cars (or as many or as high of quality) and could likely never have any liability if it were found out they were ineffective as a car manufacturer, they sure would do that if it meant increased profits.




This thread sure has been (in part) about WW as a business. I am not sure what thread you've been reading. And why are you constantly bringing up Atkins? And, yes, while I think Dr Atkins should be commended for publishing his diet books and his personal practice, the Atkins corporation, just like WW, is/was (is it still around?) out to make a profit and doesn't have their consumers' well beings at the core of their motives. But this thread isn't about the Atkins Nutritional Corporation (or whatever it was/is called). It's about WW. [EDIT: And do I think some of the changes in later editions of Atkins have to do with appealing to more people rather than having more people actually succeed at low carb through that plan? YES FOR THE RECORD. I especially despise some of the marketing Atkins does when a new version comes out that implies previous versions didn't involve eating any carbs and things like "Eco-Atkins". And don't even get me started on the frankenfood that has been sold under the Atkins brand name over the years.]



Please don't try to tell me what my motives are. If they were a low carb company, I would have the same criticisms. Give it a few years and we can revisit it if (and probably when) WW adopts a more carb, critical less lipophobic approach.




If everyone's experience of WW is what you claim yours is, they wouldn't be in the business of selling food. And I am sure the meetings are a huge component of why people sign up to and continue with the program and the people make the meetings.



I don't know if I brought up my WW experience or not. I was a kid and probably shouldn't have been on a diet like that to begin with, but I don't base my opinion of WW as a company or their nutritional advice on that experience failure. It is unfair of you to assume as such.



I've been angry when you've misrepresented what I've said. This misrepresentation has included (but is not limited to) you claiming that I have criticised individual dieters' success or I dislike WW just because it is a company/corporation. I actually see WW more in a cynical light than angry or disliking the company itself.



She included two. They both said similar things. The clinical studies were talking about something else and not actual consumer success in the program. If you have other studies that address that SPECIFIC thing that use samples from people with higher BMIs or if you have another analysis of her maths using WW's own data about number of participants and the success rate, by all means, provide.



And all of this is sound and fury signifying nothing. Both studies pretty much said the same thing. That she was lazy didn't mean she was wrong.



You're not the only one that has ever participated in the program, so you're not the only one "of all people" to complain. No one is expecting you to defend WW and people are definitely not expecting you to justify your participation. You don't need your experiences validated in a LC forum. Yet, you've made a lot of assumptions about people's motives and have accused people of personally questioning individuals' successes with the program. What has been questioned was the overall efficacy of WW. No one has claimed it doesn't work for some people, so your anecdotal experience really doesn't prove or disprove WW's success rate as a whole.



That's an overly simplistic understanding on how the business world works. It works how it works, and perception is everything. If a company can fool the world into thinking it's better at doing what it does than it is, it can avoid providing a product or service of top quality. Few businesses have to consistently provide the best service/product that it has to to avoid a fall in profits. Fast food is a good example. Do you actually think that people who suddenly get a craving for McDonalds actually are thinking about the product delivered or the product that is advertised?

Companies often even figure out how much it would cost in lawsuits or fines if a product is found to be defective. If it would cost more to recall the products, they often don't have the recall even if the recall would prevent consumer injury or death. It's hard-wired into the essence of corporations. Corporations can provide great services and advances, but ignoring what they are at the core is naive. Just because I recognise them for what they are doesn't mean that I need to reject them else be a hypocrite. I see them as a sort of necessary evil (although evil might be too strong of a word) unless we are to give up a large part of our consumption/consumerism (which might not be a bad thing, but is realistically not going to happen).

80s too. My parents tried it very briefly. I remember my Mom carefully measuring out one teaspoon of light mayo for this or that. (I think it was one point per teaspoon.)

Many people have told me the appeal of WW, for them, is not the meetings or the "weigh-in accountability" or the inspirational leadership. It is the fact that no food is off limits.

If you are going to do calorie restriction, then the fact that WW offers all these helpful tools to do it with is a service worth paying dues or joining a website or going to meetings or learning their "points" system. I don't have a problem with that at all; it's no different that what Atkins is trying to do.

However, my complaint, and I think those of others in this discussion, is similar regardless of whether we are discussing WW or Atkins or Jenny Craig. It's that they are not researching the science, and offering the service that will work the best (and please, there's lots of studies showing that low carb has the best weight loss, best compliance, and best lipid profiles) so one would think that they would stake their corporate reputation on the fact that it works!

But they don't. They simplify to the point where they can sell it; and then that's what they do.

Any bells and whistles are not part of the plan. That's when you luck out and get something that does work for you.

To me, the monolithic message, from Corporate and Medical America, that calorie restriction is the only way to lose weight is criminally wrong.

Especially since they should know better.

Moggsy,

The 'claim' that people who go to WW have tried other diets is from anecdotal evidence. Simply attending a lot of meetings and hearing people talk about their previous diet experiences. But I think it's a huge stretch of anyone's imagination to think that WW is the first dieting experience for anyone. After all, people can diet on their own and never have to pay to attend a meeting. So the person who goes to WW has to actually devote the time to attending the meeting, and pay to go. All to do things they already tried to do themselves at home.

The claims I've made come from my experience going to WW. The success of WW is a given. Am I in a position to talk about WW when I am a current member? Huh?

WW has always been about counting and tracking. At one point, when the members were just Jean Nidetch's friends meeting at her house for dieting suppport, before it was a 'plan,' I agree they didn't have tracking and counting. Calories are counted. Servings are counted. Now, points are counted and that combines servings and calories into one.

The Cookie diet would probably work as well as the Twinkie Diet. Just a guess, since the current Twinkie diet has been shown to work. And it is friggin' awesome. All it needs is to have someone assign 'points' to the twinkies and you've got the best of Atkins and WW: structure and the freedom to eat as much as you want!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david...i_b_782678.html

I have to thank this board for bringing the Twinkie Diet to my attention, by the way. Apparently, it's been on TV and in Time magazine and I don't have a TV and I don't read Time!

If you think all WW has to do is convince people that it works when it really doesn't, I think you'd be better off picking a different dieting group. WW does have meetings and successes and failures are not hidden. Word of mouth brings people to WW when they have seen the successes in the people they know well - or just happen to work with. The people who lose weight do have their doctors take them off their medications. They are seen publicly by people who notice they went from a size 20 to a size 8. It's not smoke and mirrors. The advice given at meetings is excellent advice and the leaders are lifetime members who give excellent help. They love their work, from what I can see, and they are walking advertisements for the success of the plan.

WW performs just fine in clinical trials. The best advertisement for WW is that doctors will suggest that a person who can't diet successfully on his or her own go to WW! They do see weight changes in people and they do know that the people went to WW. They also know how the program works. My gynecologist went to WW and probably still goes. I think he has more weight to lose.

WW says that 'results are not typical' because the typical WW member probably doesn't lose 80 pounds. They probably lose 10 or 15. They have a goal and it is usually a modest goal. What I notice at meetings is that there are people there who don't look fat to me but they put on 20 pounds and they feel fat. So WW helps them to that goal. It's not the 80 pounds-to-lose person - the word 'typical' would mean 'representative' and that's not what I see at meetings.

And no, Moggsy, you never said these people were fictitious. You just repeated your assertion that WW 'only has to ensure people think it's working for a lot of people' as if WW only does that and it doesn't, in fact, work for a lot of people. Maybe you'd like to explain how it is that you think WW only is the perception of success and not really success. After all, people make WW a success, nothing more.

You have no problem with corporations. Really? I think I assumed that since your problem with WW is that it's a corporation, you thought that was a BAD thing. If you have no problem with corporations, is it that you only have a problem with certain types of corporations? Which is why I mentioned the Atkins products.

WW (which is actually owned by a larger corporation, I believe, but I could be wrong) makes money for its stockholders or at least tries to not LOSE money for its stockholders. Big deal. The more I read about how you don't like things about corporations (such as them making money for their stockholders, as if that were the only thing a company does), the less I'm seeing you driving a car built by a company. You really make business and the competitive nature of business sound nasty.

There's a quote coming up, be prepared. It's from you:
'If they can do that in a way that means they actually don't need to provide cars (or as many or as high of quality) and could likely never have any liability if it were found out they were ineffective as a car manufacturer, they sure would do that if it meant increased profits'

OMG! It's the evil empire again. Those immoral SOBs! It doesn't matter to me that you include Atkins International in your list of people who want to make money and are driven by the profit motive. Saying your problem with WW is that it is a company kind of said it all. You didn't have anything to say about Atkins so don't bother now!

It's hilarious to read that you don't criticize the company or the dieters because you disagree with their diet. Here comes a quote. Be ready for it because it's yours:

'Give it a few years and we can revisit it if (and probably when) WW adopts a more carb, critical less lipophobic approach.'

Since you said that, I think your preceding statement that you would have the same criticisms if it were a low-carb company makes little sense. You're willing to 'revisit' if they line up with your beliefs. Given these statements, I sure will try to say what your motives are because someone has got to figure them out! I'm picking up clues here and there but the overriding message is a negative one.

The people absolutely make the meetings at WW. WW claims that, themselves. Loudly and proudly. And the business of making foods - is lucrative. What more can I say. It's why Atkins sells food. It's why Jenny Craig sells food - and is successful - it is why the Zone bars are on the shelves. It's a competitive marketplace. No one ever tells you to buy a WW product. They have them available but you buy them at all the supermarkets I go to and have a better WW selection on the shelves of the supermarkets. Their food products are good - I can't say that about all diet foods, but it is true about WW's stuff. They will sell food because they can and they do it well. They can do that no matter how many people come to their meetings. It's a division of WW. Procter & Gamble sells cleaning supplies, pet supplies and beauty supplies. Is there something strange about that. WW is an international corporation and they sell support for dieters and food products. If they get into the cat food business someday, I'll buy their product. Disclaimer: I'm a P & G stockholder and I like big business. When a company can't make something they can sell (dieting success in the case of WW), they will lose money. Funny how that works in making your product competitive and better.

OMG. Almost forgot their magazine and cookbooks. They sell well too.

Your statement: 'If everyone's experience of WW is what you claim yours is, they wouldn't be in the business of selling food.' That doesn't even make sense.

There are 48,000 meetings every week around the world in 30 countries and they sell food. What are they doing wrong!!!

I don't have to misrepresent what you've said. You've been beating the same drum and I get it: WW is big business and that is bad. You've said it different ways and I get it. The success of the people makes it a big business. They go. They pay. They succeed. They bring their friends. The business got big for that reason, like it or not.

You last went to WW when you were a kid? That's your personal experience? Honey, you've been gone too long!

I took my daughter to WW. I told her that all the tools she ever needs to lose weight are there. She's a vegetarian and they can accomodate that.

I don't see your comments as cynical. You disparage the success of a company that enjoys success which - in your own words, they don't deserve. Sounds angry, not cynical. Sounds exactly like you are angry and dislking the company itself!

And the dieters? The dieters are the company. It wouldn't be successful if it weren't for the success of the dieters. This links WW's commercial success to the personal success of the dieters. Protest all you want, it is what it is.

That success defines the efficacy of WW. If the diet doesn't work, people don't go.

My keyboard just died and I had to restart my computer. I am only halfway through responding to Moggsy's post and I still have to look at blogger Fat fu's story! Onward!

What fantastic luck - without even going to NCBI yet, I see that Consumer Reports has rated the diets for weight loss initial success and maintenance. WW comes out on top for maintenance success.

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news...t_watchers.html

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18496858/

In the MSNBC article, George Blackburn is quoted:
'These eating tips may be helpful, but it’s best to choose a plan that is simple and easy to stick to, says Dr. George Blackburn, associate director of nutrition at the Harvard Medical School. “You can cut these tips to three: Eat less, eat healthy and exercise.”'

The guy must have gone to WW. Their mantra is 'Eat less. Move More.'

Awesome study from the National Weight Loss Registry, defiinitely worth downloading the PDF (it's free - OF COURSE) which has been tracking successful dieters - here, the time period is 8 years:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16741274

And that is ALL they do:
http://www.nwcr.ws/Research/default.htm

Interesting to know: NWLR actually had a 'button' to click in the Atkins website to access their site - because they wanted dieters who were low-carbing to join the registry of successful dieters. Despite the popularity of the Atkins diet at the time, they only have 10% of the particpants claiming to have lost weight by low-carbing.

Here's the real kicker: fat fu (I don't know what a fu is but I am going to guess) says in her blog:

'In reality, people who go from “obese” to “normal weight” and maintain it for more than a few years are so rare that nobody knows just how rare because no weight loss study has been large enough or rigorous enough to detect a significant number of them. You can look everywhere (and I have) for a respectable study that gives you this number and you won’t find it.'

Seriously? People go from obese to normal weight and maintain it and nobody knows because that information is just SO RARE and we know that because fat fu couldn't find it. She's looking for a respectable study? The National Weight Loss Registry has been around for years and they study 'successful dieters' and track their success in maintaining. Not only that, but they produce studies about HOW people lost successfully.

What an idiot.

Gotta pick this up later. This stuff is too good - you couldn't make up better stuff from a blogger.