Warning … things are about to get heated.
I gave myself time to cool down and I’m still not cool.
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Ok, that was the good. Now it’s time for the bad and the ugly.
Big news in the diet industry: Weight Watchers acquires Sequence
In case you missed it, news was announced a couple of days ago that Weight Watchers has acquired a company called Sequence which will allow them to prescribe popular weight loss medications like Ozempic and Mounjaro.
This is bad news for you. Yes, you. And for me. And for all of us.
The diet industry is a 50 billion per year industry. With more money than ever going into solutions for weight loss … you’d think we’d be moving in the right direction.
But we’re not. According to the CDC, approximately 42% of Americans are classified as having obesity.
So what gives?
How can we have more access to information than ever, more money being dumped into weight loss solutions than ever, and yet we’re sicker and unhealthier than ever?
To me, the answer is simple (even if the solution is complex).
Our lifestyles are flooded with convenience, stress, and comfort.
When chronic stress goes up and processed and highly palatable food consumption goes up and movement goes down …
Well … yeah. You get the outcomes that we’re seeing.
Companies in the diet industry like Weight Watchers have stepped in to try to make a difference.
I’m always a believer that there’s no ill intent behind a diet program like WW.
That they truly want to help people.
However, the statistics on dieting are abysmal.
The sad truth about the diet industry
They pocket millions and millions of dollars and are basically playing a volume game.
If I get a million people to try my diet program and 40,000 people are successful … that’s a 4% success rate.
Which is worse than the average success rate for any diet (which is about 5%).
However, I now have 40,000 testimonials and 40,000 before and after pictures and 40,000 people can make it seem like a roaring success.
This is what we see across the diet industry with programs like Weight Watchers, Noom, Optavia, and the like.
I could start a program tomorrow and put every single person on a highly restrictive meal plan. I could even package up the meals for them and ship them directly to their houses.
I could market my program as “no calorie counting required!” and “lose weight fast … guaranteed!”
A very small percentage of people who buy that program will follow through, suck it up, and see results.
Then I can grab those testimonials and show “proof” that “it works.”
Welcome to the diet industry.
Where your emotional vulnerabilities are used against you.
They want you to believe that success can happen in an instant. That it’s easy. That all you have to do is follow the rules.
And if you don’t succeed … well … you’re the problem because look at all of their success stories!
What about behavior change that leads to sustainable results?
Do you learn sustainable behavior change? Do they even care about sustainable behavior change? Do you learn what to do after you stop following their program?
One of the things that raised the biggest red flag for me about Weight Watchers was their vocal pride about how clients leave their program and frequently return to them.
As if that’s a good thing.
Imagine if I was like … POP is so great because anytime someone leaves us, they gain the weight back and need to hire us again. How amazing!
Ummm … no. Yet, WW loves to talk about how clients need to return to the program after leaving. They fail to mention that it’s due to the fact that they can’t sustain their results because the process was unsustainable.
But hey, they lost weight while doing it so why not go back.
It’s the same story with a different name when it comes to programs like Optavia.
Now, I actually think WW is significantly better than Optavia but both of them contribute to the diet industry bullshit.
They contribute to the mindset of a quick fix. That it’s easy. That you don’t have to fundamentally change your habits and behaviors.
Everyone says they want a healthy lifestyle. Until they see a magic pill being shoved down their throats every 30 seconds.
The latest craze is weight loss medications like Ozempic.
Medications that actually serve a purpose for a subset of diabetics. But they have gained mainstream popularity as a panacea for weight loss.
And WW didn’t waste anytime jumping on this opportunity.
Being able to distribute weight loss medications that suppress your appetite … they went all in.
Unfortunately, it’s going to exacerbate the problems we face, as a society.
Diet programs don’t lead to sustainable results.
This will not make us healthier. This will not help people lose weight and keep it off.
It will have the adverse effect.
Why? Because there’s no such thing as free lunch.
There’s always a cost.
Do Optavia for 6 months and I promise you’ll lose weight.
I also promise you’ll be miserable, worse off hormonally and metabolically, and will gain it all back (likely plus interest).
There are a number of people who are being more open about their experience with drugs like Ozempic. And it’s not pretty.
After coming off the drug, appetite and cravings are through the roof. It’s incredibly difficult to maintain your results. And some of the side effects of the drug are life threatening.
This is the cost of quick fixes.
If you don’t learn how to live a healthy lifestyle … no diet, no pill, no shot, no drug will solve your problems.
To me … this is a pure money grab. It will work. They’ll profit considerably from this acquisition. Zero doubt about that.
They will also harm more people than help. They absolutely will NOT make a dent in the obesity epidemic (will likely add to it). And they are contributing to the mental mindfuckery of the diet industry.
Maybe we need people to go through the ringer to finally learn that there’s no shortcut to this shit.
But I wish it didn’t have to be this way. I wish the industry that I am so passionate about wasn’t so full of emotional manipulation and zero regard for longterm well-being.
Maybe I’m overreacting. Maybe it won’t be so bad.
Or maybe it will be.
Either way, I’m disappointed and frustrated.
We have a lot of work to do.
