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Companies like WW, formerly Weight Watchers, and Noom, which makes a buzzy weight-loss app, have a new pitch for would-be members: They can lose weight without dieting.
Sort of. Call it a holistic lifestyle approach.
People used to be willing to do “draconian, onerous things” to shed pounds, said Gary Foster, the chief scientific officer for WW. But it’s no longer all about weight anymore; it’s also about health.
They are now saying “‘no longer am I willing to eat in wacky ways. I want to come out of this program, eating more healthy, not less healthy,’” he said.
WW pivoted in 2018, debuting a program more focused on overall health alongside the new, abbreviated name.
More recent entrant Noom, meanwhile, emphasizes psychology as a means to changing one’s lifestyle and habits. Noom charges about $60 a month for a program that incorporates daily lessons, calorie counting, activity tracking and coaching.
The company describes itself as “more than a diet.” Its advertisements promise people they can “stop the yo-yo dieting,” or tell them to “stop dieting. Get life-long results.”
Whether these new and still-evolving approaches will relieve weight anxieties still remains to be seen.
In this new episode of the Bloomberg podcast “Losing It,” we explore why the backlash against dieting is happening, how companies are getting in on the action, and whether we’re actually over losing weight…or maybe just over the word “diet.”
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