Dear Weight Watchers, I have two letters for you.
I intended to write about this article by Japanese scientists that says fat people are more likely to live longer than thin people (yay fatties!), but I got sidetracked by how annoyed I was that we are still wasting so much time, energy and cash trying to figure out what size our bodies need to be so we can live the longest, healthiest, happiest life when millions of people in the world are genuinely suffering. Which led me to this:
You know what I would like to see? I would like to see Weight Watchers STFU about fighting your body's own signals of hunger and actually do something to FIGHT HUNGER. With all of the cash they're raking in making people feel bad about themselves and their choices, they could certainly buy some grub for some needy folks.
***at which point I had to stop and Google search just to make sure they weren't already doing this, because you never know, and, lo and behold, they actually are! Sort of. But you know what's gross about the whole thing? Not just the part where they pay out for pounds lost, there's also this fine print:
For every 1 million pounds lost during the campaign period, Weight Watchers will donate $250,000, up to $1 million. Pounds lost by Members will be determined by average weight lost per meeting attendance during campaign period multiplied by total number of attendances during campaign period.
So hypothetically, if you gain weight during the campaign period, Weight Watchers will take their money back. If you weren't already feeling guilty that your body isn't small enough, now because of you, hungry kids won't get to eat. Way to go fattie.
The fact that WW chooses to base the amount of its charitable gift not on a concrete action but on a physiological result that it well knows is beyond a person's immediate control (otherwise WW'd be out of business by now, right?) just highlights how clearly profit-driven their motives are and how much they do not give a shit about helping anybody but themselves.
You know, I've never really sat down and thought about this at any great length, but I really really hate those guys and the impact they have on women and men in our culture. I hate the fact that every now and again perfectly nice people in my office flog diet culture at me because of their stupid WW at work program. I hate the pyramid scheme cultishness of the whole thing, how they infiltrate local schools and churches, how they plaster ads on just about every website I enjoy, how their main enemy is A VITAL BODY SIGNAL called hunger (who is actually a rather cute little fuzzy orange thing).
I hate how they lie about their effectiveness over and over, how they pretend to not be a diet, how they support the idea that if a person isn't losing weight, he or she must just not be trying hard enough, how they've been in the weight loss business for 36 years and they still can only demonstrate an average 6.6 pound weight loss per person per YEAR. Know how much it costs to be a WW member for a year? $360 bucks. That's almost $60 per pound, people. Their product doesn't work worth a darn and they're still making money hand over fist.
There is not a middle finger in the world big enough for what I would like to convey to Weight Watchers and the diet industry in general. It's the only line of business I know of where it doesn't remotely matter if the product works, people will still clamor for it. The whole thing just makes me ill.
Shining a light on Fat Love | Fat Studies on Colbert
Posted by CarrieP on October 12, 2009
Yeah, WW is using their donation to combat world hunger as a carrot and stick to browbeat dieters into trying to stick with an impossible plan (the carrot is the donation to combat hunger, the stick is that if you don't lose weight or gain any, they'll reduce their donation, so the success or failure is all on the dieter, not on them). WW sucks, as does every other diet plan out there that promises weight loss and a magically improved life if only you give them your hard-earned dollars (and then they never deliver on that promise because they can't, it's an impossible promise to keep).
WLS - Sorry, not my preferred way of dying. *glares at doctor recommending it*
Right on, great post, Carrie!
Great post.
As a side note, I loved the Japanese study on weight. I read the entire study and they did a really good job: using a huge sample size, working the study over 11 years, factoring in other health variables to keep from skewing the results AND the results say that, if anything, because people usually under report their weight, that the study is rather conservative in their estimations!
You inspired me to blog about that article and to look up other BMI related articles. The thing that keeps getting me riled up is that even articles saying obesity will kill you also say that small amounts of weight loss . . . in the 10 lb range (implying the difference is more in life-style than weight) . . . can clear up a lot of the negative effects in diseases like diabetes. Which just goes to show that someone other than "researchers" keeps forcing us to believe that we have to be in the right BMI category to live another year.
*cough* Weight Watchers! *cough*
It's interesting that these researchers will use BMI to categorize if you're unhealthy or not, but then say that only 10 lbs can bring you healthier again (if you're actually unhealthy to begin with) . . . they also don't mention that 10 lbs doesn't move most obese people out of the obese category. . . so your BMI category stays the same even when you're healthier. So, if your doctor doesn't know you've gotten healthier and that you are maintaining that 10 or so lbs . . . they're going to assume you need to diet. Lame.
Does this make me a conspiracy theorist and believe that our health care is being pushed by weight-loss companies who get excited by high recidivism? . . . Yes. You're darn right it does!
-Esther
Health before Beauty
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/05/28/health/main620201.shtml
Weight Watchers claims that after 5 years dieters regain 50% of the weight they lost. This claim is misleading because the average dieter who goes to WW weighs 165 pounds going in. They lose an average of 22 pounds and gain back 11.
I would love to know the results of Dr Phil's Weight Loss Challenge. I bet they gained it all back and then some.
"There is not a middle finger in the world big enough for what I would like to convey to Weight Watchers and the diet industry in general."
I just LOVE that line!!! I completely agree and like so many other's I had been forced to go to WW. My first was when I was about 6 or 7yrs old, but my most memorable lecture was when I was 11.
The very thin blond woman, who had never been fat in her life, who was running the group, used being sexually harassed by construction workers as the inspirational talk to get all the fat women in the room motivated. Apparently a fat woman she knew started doing WW and lost a lot of weight and got thin and one day she was walking down the street past some construction wokers who then started whistling at her--- and she was so shocked, because being fat and ugly that had never happened to her before, that she acutally fell off the curb! This now-thin woman was that thrilled at having been noticed by these men and their appreciative wolf calls.
Now that was a long time ago so naturally I'm parapharasing, but that was the gist. And even though I was only 11yrs old and didn't even have the vocabulary or know what "sexual harassment" was--I don't think the concept was even around then (mid/late 70s), but at 11, even without knowing --- I knew. I knew that was sick and pathetic and I didn't want to have anything to do with it if that was the goal. I don't think I went back after that or not for much longer much to my parents disappointment (again).
So you can count me in on the Empire Bldg sized middle finger and Brit two finger salute to WW and f**&&(ng NutraSystem with their disgusting cat-food canned dinners (again in the 70s).
If there's one thing that should be flashing-neon-obvious by now, after a century of people worshiping mindlessly at the altar of Calorie Voodoo Math, it's that pretending you are not hungry when you actually are IS NOT SUSTAINABLE. Wouldn't it be great if everyone could just be less hungry if they wanted to be? Imagine all the money you'd save on food!
If WW really cared about feeding the poor they'd just DO IT, and not make it a condition of people sticking to their points-free rabbit food. Poo on them.
My husband has a great line about Weight Watchers people:
"It only takes 365 days to get around you!" (referring to their egos).
I knew someone at work who did Weight Watchers. She actually wore something around her wrist that looked like a rosary, but minus the crucifix. I think it was for counting points or something. W-e-i-r-d!
I have tried WW, Curves and all that junk but never really had the motivation to lose weight and really I don't want to. Yes I have my "ugly days" where I wish I looked like Beyonce or some other celeb but I realize that is irrational and unrealistic.
It is so wrong that WW would use this kind of tactic against their customers, using guilt in order to keep them reeled in because that's what they want right? To keep people guilty enough about their weight in order to get their money.
I am so sick of weight loss groups, diets etc that do nothing but place guilt on us.
Speaking of diets in general, I was reading a thread on another board where the member posted he's been feeling very tired lately. He wrote that he thinks it might be the diet he's on. (O RLY?) He's only been eating 900-1000 calories a day, and also wrote he doesn't want to quit because he paid a lot of money for it and has lost almost 40 pounds so far. Others congratulated him on the weight loss and suggested he MIGHT HAVE A FLU BUG. No one suggested that perhaps he should QUIT THE DAMN DIET AND START EATING NORMALLY AGAIN! UGH! I'd like to reply with that, but I know there will be a nasty backlash or is there a better way for me to give him that response?
I'm also a former WW member. I lost 83 pounds in 8 months by drinking tons of water, exercising 6 times a week, half-starving myself and constantly obsessing over food.
WW=MAJOR FAIL.