Don’t call it Weight Watchers. It’s ‘WW’ now
After more than a half-century, and countless, obsessive calculations on how many points you have to spend on your diet, Weight Watchers officially ceased to exist. On Sept. 24, WW was born.
Armed with a catchy tagline, “Wellness that Works,” the company’s major rebranding not only does away with its old name but also marks a strategic move to align with a modern society in which terms such as “self-care” and “body positivity” are celebrated, and the slightest mention of dieting is met with harsh criticism.
Mindy Grossman, WW’s president and chief executive, touted the company’s new focus as a “360 degree approach to ‘healthy,’ no matter how you define that for yourself,” The Washington Post’s Rachel Siegel reported.
“Everyone is talking about wellness, and to a degree people don’t want to use the word ‘diet’ because they think it’s a more short-term, punitive kind of issue, and that’s not what we are,” Grossman said.
As part of the company’s current vision statement WW is aiming to “create a world where wellness is accessible to all, not just the few.” Wellness — or a “state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being” — and variations of the word “health” appear multiple times in this declaration. “Diet” and “weight” are nowhere to be found.
But news that the company, which spent decades building its reputation as “the world’s leading provider of weight management services,” is distancing itself from dieting to focus on wellness has been met with skepticism.
Founded in the early 1960s by a housewife from Queens named Jean Nidetch, the company has historically marketed itself as a science-backed, healthy way to help people lose weight, becoming famous for a strategy that involves assigning point values to different foods and weekly in-person group meetings, complete with weigh-ins, led by someone who has succeeded in the program.
Under its new brand, WW will still offer its points-based weight loss program, Grossman told NBC’s “Today” show Monday, but said the business wants to do more than just offer a “shortterm solution.”
She said the company has been “evolving” to incorporate health and wellness practices, and attributed the company’s financial success to its adaptation. Indeed, the rebrand comes on the heels of the company announcing in August that it now has 4.5 million subscribers, an increase of 1 million from last year. According to Market Watch, its total revenue is more than $1.3 billion.
“We will never abdicate our leadership in the best healthy eating program for weight loss in the world, but we can be so much more today,” Grossman