WW International, Inc., formerly Weight Watchers International, Inc., is a global company headquartered in the U.S. that offers weight loss and maintenance, fitness, and mindset services such as the Weight Watchers comprehensive diet program."What is Weight Watchers Diet?". U.S. News & World Report. Retrieved May 21, 2018. Founded in 1963 by Queens, New York City homemaker Jean Nidetch, WW's program has three options as of 2019: online via its mobile app and website, coaching online or by phone, or in-person meetings.
In 2018, the company rebranded to "WW" to reflect "its development from focusing on weight loss to overall health and wellness."Hope, Katie. "Weight Watchers drops 'weight' from name". BBC News. September 24, 2018.
Company history Inception Weight Watchers was conceived by Jean Nidetch, a housewife and mother living in Queens, New York City, who had been overweight most of her life and had tried pills, hypnosis, and numerous fad diets, all of which only led to regained weight. In 1961, at the age of 38, she weighed 214 pounds and an acquaintance mistook her for being pregnant. She entered a free 10-week weight-loss program sponsored by the New York City Board of Health's obesity clinic.Allan, Vicky. "The Fat Controllers". The Herald. January 7, 2006.Bauer, Patricia. "Jean Nidetch". Britannica. Retrieved May 20, 2018. The program was called the "Prudent Diet" and had been developed in the 1950s by Dr. Norman Jolliffe, head of the board's Bureau of Nutrition.Goetz, Thomas. The Decision Tree: How to Make Better Choices and Take Control of Your Health. Rodale, Inc., 2011. pp. 70–71."Investing in obesity battle, Humana may give Weight Watchers new life". HealthcareFinanceNews.com. February 27, 2015.Ben-Yehuda, Ayala. "Little Neck neighbors saw beginnings of diet empire" . TimesLedger. July 31, 2003.Jolliffe, Norman. Reduce and Stay Reduced. Simon & Schuster, 1952."Norman Jolliffe, Physician, Is Dead". New York Times. August 2, 1961. The plan included the dictums "No skipping meals. Fish five times a week. Two pieces of bread and two glasses of skim milk a day. More fruits and vegetables."Cohan, Peter. "Weight Watchers Winning $61 Billion War On Fat". Forbes. November 14, 2012. and eating liver once a week.Bockmann, Rich. "Weight Watchers' humble origins began in Deepdale" . TimesLedger. November 6, 2011. It prohibited alcohol, sweets, and fatty foods, included a list of allowed foods and the quantities allowed,"72 Pounds—Weight Watchers 50th" (video). The History Factory. 2013. and encouraged weighing portions.Horwell, Veronica. "Jean Nidetch obituary". The Guardian. May 1, 2015.
Although Nidetch lost 20 pounds on the ten-week program, she did not like the way the clinic's leader imparted information at the weekly meetings. Discussion was discouraged;Sedensky, Matt. "At 87, Weight Watchers founder keeps pounds off". San Diego Union-Tribune. Associated Press. September 2, 2011.Sedensky, Matt. "Weight Watchers founder Jean Nidetch dies at age 91". San Diego Union-Tribune. Associated Press. April 29, 2015. in addition, Nidetch's motivation was threatened by her urge to binge on Mallomar cookies.McFadden, Robert D. "Jean Nidetch, a Founder of Weight Watchers, Dies at 91". New York Times. April 29, 2015.Cornwell, Rupert. "Jean Nidetch: As we mourn death of Weight Watchers founder, have we learned lessons on keeping weight down?". The Independent. May 2, 2015.Stern, Jane; Stern, Michael. Lexicon of Real American Food. Rowman & Littlefield, 2011. She therefore began a weekly support group in her apartment, initially inviting six overweight friends,"Jean Nidetch, founder of Weight Watchers, dies". BBC News. April 29, 2015.Yager, Susan. The Hundred Year Diet: America's Voracious Appetite for Losing Weight. Rodale, Inc., 2010. pp. 76–77. which within two months grew to 40 women each week. She introduced the "Prudent Diet", a single page from the New York City Board of Health,Kurland, Rachel. "Local Weight Watchers Founder Dies at 85". The Jewish Exponent. January 24, 2018. to her fellow weight-loss seekers,Frankle, Reva T.; Yang, Mei-Uih. Obesity and Weight Control: The Health Professional's Guide to Understanding and Treatment. Aspen Publishers, 1988. p. 375. and the group provided empathy, rapport, mutual understanding, support, and sharing of stories and ideas.Kanner, Bernice. "Return to Slender". New York. February 7, 1994. pp. 16–17. The meetings also included a weekly weigh-in,"Jean Nidetch". Entrepreneur. October 10, 2008. and Nidetch developed a rewards system including prizes for weight-loss milestones.Langer, Emily. "Jean Nidetch, ardent promoter of Weight Watchers, dies at 91". Washington Post. April 29, 2015. In October 1962, Nidetch achieved her target weight of 142 pounds, and maintained the weight loss; according to her she never exceeded 150 pounds thereafter.
As interest grew, Nidetch coached groups in other neighborhoods. One group was at the home of Al and Felice Lippert, and after the Lipperts successfully lost weight, Al, who was a businessman in the garment industry, talked Nidetch into making a business out of her endeavor.
Launch, IPO, and sale to Heinz Nidetch and the Lipperts launched Weight Watchers Inc. in Queens in 1963 with Nidetch as president and evangelist. They rented public meeting venues and charged participants $2 per weekly meeting; the first official meeting, in May 1963, attracted 400 attendees. Nidetch led groups and trained others to lead groups as well.
Al Lippert, in charge of the business end of the company, franchised it in 1964, using a razor/razorblade model of an inexpensive franchise fee offered to graduates from the company's programs who had kept the weight off, with 10% of gross earnings as royalties to the parent company. By 1967, the company was international, with 102 franchises in the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, Great Britain, and Israel.
Felice Lippert was in charge of recipe development, nutrition, and food research; the first Weight Watchers cookbook, published in 1966, sold more than 1.5 million copies. By January 1968, the company had more than one million members worldwide, and, with the help of Matty Simmons' and Leonard Mogel's Twenty First Century Communications, Inc., Weight Watchers Magazine was launched, publishing 300,000 copies of its first issue.
By 1968, the company had 91 franchises in 43 states, and to expand further overseas Al Lippert took the company public as Weight Watchers International Inc.; the initial 225,000 shares, offered at $11.25 a share, began trading enthusiastically, rising to over $30 by the end of the first day. Lippert also initiated lines of Weight Watchers prepared food, spas, camps for overweight kids, and weight-loss products such as scales and travel kits.
Nidetch, with her slim, well-dressed image, charisma, and flair for motivational speaking, remained the public face of the company. In 1970 she published The Memoir of a Successful Loser: The Story of Weight Watchers, which documented the original Weight Watchers plan. In 1973 she resigned as president of the company to devote herself to public relations – traveling, being interviewed, and speaking to large audiences about the program's success.
In the mid-1970s, the company moved away from simply dieting and more toward "eating management", developing tailored options to meet the varying needs of its members, including a specialized food plan for the management of weight-loss plateaus, and a maintenance plan.
In 1975, the publication of Weight Watchers magazine was taken over by Family Media (the publishers of Family Health magazine).
By the late 1970s, the company and its operations and divisions had grown too large and complex for Lippert to manage, and it was sold, along with its food licensees, to the H. J. Heinz Company in 1978 for $72 million. Lippert remained chairman and signed on to remain CEO for a few years, and Nidetch remained in her role as consultant. In the late 1980s, the company's three divisions – support-group meetings division, food line, and publications and media – were still increasingly profitable year-over-year.
Private-equity acquisition and second IPO
In 1990, with competition from Jenny Craig, Slim-Fast, Healthy Choice, and Nutrisystem, earnings began to decline. The Heinz parent company competed by introducing newly developed Weight Watchers "Smart Ones" frozen meals. In 1997, to replace its previous system of counting and weighing food, Weight Watchers introduced the POINTS system, an algorithmic formula which quantifies a food portion for the purposes of healthy weight loss based on carbohydrates, fat, and fiber content.Belluz, Julia. "Oprah just invested millions in Weight Watchers. But does the program even work?". Vox. October 21, 2015.
In 1999, Heinz, while retaining the rights to the Weight Watchers name for use in certain food categories,Beck, Ernest. "Heinz Sells Weight Watchers Interest To Artal Luxembourg for $735 Million". Wall Street Journal. July 23, 1999."Weight Watchers". Invus. Retrieved May 21, 2018. sold the company to the private equity firm Artal Luxembourg, for $735 million in a leveraged buyout led by the Invus Group, which manages Artal and which is run by Raymond Debbane.Vardi, Nathan. "The Mystery Man Behind Weight Watchers And The Private Equity Deal Of The Century". Forbes. September 4, 2012. Artal put up $224 million and Weight Watchers financed the rest of the buyout with debt. Debbane became chairman of Weight Watchers."Weight Watchers International Inc (WTW)". Reuters. Retrieved May 21, 2018."Form 10-K: Annual Report for the fiscal year ended January 2, 2010". Weight Watchers International. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. March 3, 2010. In 2001 Debbane organized an initial public offering for Weight Watchers and took it public again. As of 2018, Artal remains the company's largest shareholder.Hiaasen, Rob. "Institutional Ownership Of Weight Watchers International, Inc. (WTW) Is 91.7%". PostAnalyst.com. September 18, 2018.Mason, Amelie. "Here's Who Owns Weight Watchers International, Inc. (WTW)". PostAnalyst.com. October 3, 2018.Melin, Anders; Ritcey, Alicia. "Oprah is Weight Watchers' most absent board member". Detroit News. Bloomberg News. April 3, 2017.
In 2000, the new owners reacquired the license to publish Weight Watchers Magazine from Time Inc., where Heinz had offloaded it in 1996 and where it had performed poorly; circulation recovered quickly, and the magazine was redesigned in 2003.
In 2001, the company launched WeightWatchers.com."Weight Watchers Celebrates 50th Anniversary By Honoring Its Founder - Jean Nidetch - With A Flagship Center Dedication". PR Newswire. March 25, 2013. In 2007, it launched Weight Watchers Online for Men.Contois, Emily. "Real Men & Real Food: The Cultural Politics of Male Weight Loss". Nursing Clio. August 15, 2017."Announcing the Launch of Weight Watchers Online for Men and Weight Watchers eTools for Men". Business Wire. March 29, 2007.Smith, Andrew F. Savoring Gotham: A Food Lover's Companion to New York City. Oxford University Press, 2015. pp. 638–639. Competitor Nutrisystem, Inc. also had a men's line.