After decades of emphasizing personal responsibility and behavior change, Weight Watchers is embracing clinical weight loss treatments and is cutting back on the in-person meetings that once defined the company.
more than a quarter of a billion dollars in 2022 after a pivot to “wellness” faltered and the pandemic cratered in-person attendance.The company is cutting more than 300 in-person meeting locations, or about 29% of its footprint, many of them in urban areas like Chicago and Washington, D.C. that were leased on a month-to-month basis.
“It’s a recognition finally of the fact that there are biological and genetic underpinnings to obesity — and that in some cases willpower alone is not enough,” WW CEO Sima Sistani tells Axios.Sistani, who joined the company in March 2022, acknowledges that the most devoted WeightWatchers members might be startled to hear her say that.
“But that’s even more reason why it’s important for us to acknowledge it and to lead from a point of science,” she said, adding that the company must provide “a clinical pathway to those who need it” and wants to help end the “stigma” surrounding obesity.In 2018, the company made a splash by reducing its emphasis on weight loss and focusing more on healthy living.Be smart:In 2022, its subscriber base fell 15% to 3.55 million, about 80% of whom are digital-only members.
The company will continue to provide in-person meetings “when it makes sense” and is planning new “IRL” experiences, Sistani said without offering details. “The fixed-rent location doesn’t make as much sense for what we’re doing,” she said. “But I’m still very much a believer in IRL spaces.”WeightWatchers believes the way people approach weight loss is changing — and that it can’t afford to be left behind.
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