From a celebrity success to another fad diet: How did Weight Watchers fall into bankruptcy?

Australia Broadcast Center

08-05-2025

It was an emphatic and often-memed commercial.
Queen of the daytime talk show, Oprah Winfrey can't hide her excitement.
"I love bread!" she says, hands gesticulating in the air.
She was, of course, advertising weight loss program Weight Watchers, now known as WW.
In 2015, Winfrey became the public face of the program, but only nine years later the relationship would sour.
Winfrey announced she was stepping down from the board last year "to eliminate any perceived conflict of interest around her taking weight-loss medications".
Perhaps it was a sign of things to come.
On Tuesday, local time, the US company announced it was filing for bankruptcy, citing a "rapidly changing weight management landscape".
So, from a celebrity-spruiked success to a relic of diet culture — how did we get here?
It was Brooklyn housewife Jean Nidetch who first envisaged the company which would become a global juggernaut.
After years of binge-eating and fad diets, Nidetch came up with a system in which she periodically met with a group of her friends who were also interested in losing weight, and together they charted their progress and offered encouragement.
Her first official meeting in 1963 attracted more than 400 women.
Just five years later, WW had amassed 1 million members worldwide.
Even in the beginning, Nidetch was quick to differentiate it from other diets.
"The word 'diet' is one we refrain from using at WW because one usually goes on a diet to lose weight, and then ultimately goes off the diet," she said in 1968.
"We refer, instead, to a 'program' of re-educating one's eating habits, which then becomes a way of life."
Australia was among the first international bases, opening in Sydney in 1969.
The phenomenon would eventually grow to more than 400 locations in every state and territory.
Nidetch would continue to cash in — from cookbooks, frozen meals and even scales — and Weight Watchers not only became a diet but a bankable brand.
In 1978, she sold the brand to HJ Heinz Co (the sauce brand) for a whopping $US71 million ($541 million today, with adjusted inflation).
An undeniable part of WW was its celebrity influence.
Excluding Winfrey, the brand was known for recruiting celebrities to divulge their before-and-afters to the public, including Jessica Simpson, Jennifer Hudson and even Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson.
Simpson, who was brutally ridiculed for her weight after the birth of her daughter in 2012, said she felt "pressured" to lose weight as she spruiked the program.
"My body, like my life, is a work in progress, but I'm getting there with Weight Watchers," Simpson says in one commercial, between long shots of herself smiling on the beach.
But it wasn't just celebs.
Every day people found a community in the weekly weigh-ins, and were able to stay motivated by a group of judgement-free peers.
But while the program was praised for its flexibility and social aspects, it was also criticised by dieticians for not being run by medical professional but instead "coaches".
In 2018, the brand also garnered controversy for offering free memberships for teenagers aged 13 to 17.
It later responded acknowledging teen years are a "critical life stage" and that it was not providing a diet but "healthy habits for life".
At times, it also struggled to differentiate itself in a market full of diet alternatives such as similarly celebrity-endorsed rival Jenny Craig.
As the years went on, the world of nutrition changed rapidly, and in 2023, Jenny Craig filed for bankruptcy.
In an attempt to shift towards wellness, Weight Watchers abandoned its iconic name to not mention weight, rebranding to WW in 2018.
Adding the tagline "Wellness that Works" amid a cultural move away from diet culture and growing competition from phone apps, social media influencers and online programs.
In 2023, struggling to adapt to the changing world, the company introduced its own clinic — which provided telehealth access to weight loss medications such as semaglutide (better known as Ozempic or Wegovy).
But despite WW's restructure, a new generation of consumers were leaving WW behind, and turning to TikTok and Instagram for a health information instead.
Emily Denniss, a lecturer at the Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition at Deakin University who researches the relationship between social media use and dietary patterns, said people have moved away from traditional restrictive diets in what she calls a "rebranding of diet culture".
"Jenny Craig and Weight Watchers have failed because they haven't changed how they are talking about weight-loss," Dr Denniss said.
Nicholas Fuller, an associate professor at the University of Sydney's Central Clinical School, Faculty of Medicine and Health, who researches at The Boden Initiative — a centre focused on the global obesity epidemic — said people have been following the same approach to weight loss for the past five decades.
"There are so many programs out there and only three have real-world evidence.
"This continuous calorie approach doesn't work, and people are fed up of being stuck in this cycle of losing and regaining weight."
Natalie Spicer, the Butterfly Foundation's head of clinical and support services, said diet culture has not disappeared, but evolved.
"The demise of weight loss organisations is sadly not an indicator of a move away from the diet culture we live in, but more a move towards quick fix solutions like injectable weight loss medications," Ms Spicer said.
"Many of the same harmful ideals are now repackaged under the guise of 'wellness', 'clean eating', and 'health optimisation'."
The company says it has about $US1.15 billion in debt, according to its bankruptcy announcement.
Parent company WW International Inc said it has the support of nearly three-quarters of its debt holders.
It expects to emerge from bankruptcy within 45 days, if not sooner.
"For more than 62 years, WeightWatchers has empowered millions of members to make informed, healthy choices, staying resilient as trends have come and gone," Weight Watchers CEO Tara Comonte said.
"As the conversation around weight shifts toward long-term health, our commitment to delivering the most trusted, science-backed, and holistic solutions — grounded in community support and lasting results — has never been stronger, or more important."