Way back in the early 1960s, Jean Nidetch, an overweight mother from New York, tried unsuccessfully to lose weight on her own. It wasn’t long before she realized that she needed to create a community to hold her accountable. Weight Watchers was unofficially born when she invited 6 of her friends to her house so they could lose weight together. Charging a $3 membership fee, Nidetch provided a nutritional diet that banned alcohol, sweets, and fatty foods. Fast-forward to 2015 when talk show host Oprah Winfrey took over Weight Watchers and the diet began to become unrecognizable. Diet experts have boiled the failure of the new “WW” down to 3 words: too much freedom. Unlimited access to zero point foods proved to be too challenging for most dieters, not to mention the fact that there’s no such thing as a zero-calorie or negative-calorie food. Apart from foods that have been engineered to be calorie-free, like sugar substitutes, virtually all foods contain calories. The bottom line is that there’s simply not enough structure to the new diet plan. To add insult to injury, now WW is jumping into the prescription weight loss drug business using the diabetes drug Ozempic. There’s just one problem with that: doctors recommend that the drug ONLY be used by people who have diabetes. That’s because Ozempic is not FDA-approved for weight management. Speaking about Ozempic as a weight loss solution, Dr. Christopher McGowan, a gastroenterologist specializing in obesity medicine, said, “While it has received significant attention in the media, Ozempic and related GLP-1 medications are not designed to be used in this way. It can lead to potential adverse events, and ultimately the weight that is lost will be regained.” While no one wants to hear it, there’s only one way to lose weight: limit your calorie intake and increase your calorie expenditure through exercise.
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| Jean Nidetch |
