ENCORE: New Year, New Challenges for Weight Loss Programs

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Speaker 1
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Speaker 2
Hey listeners, David here. Hope you're having a great new year. This week we're airing the first five episodes of last year. The idea here is to look back at the way things were at the beginning of 2023 before we kick off 2024. We'll be back next week with all new episodes. Enjoy. I'm David Brown and this is business wars daily on this January 9. And we're back from our holiday hiatus. Happy New Year, everyone. Speaking of the new year, this is about the time when folks are starting to work on the resolutions they made about a week or so ago. According to one recent survey, the top three New Year's resolutions are getting healthier, increasing personal fulfillment and, of course, losing a few pounds.

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Speaker 2
There are plenty of companies willing to help the last group try to slim down for a small fee, of course. The grand dom of weight loss companies, WW, formerly called Weight Watchers, has a new CEO and a new vision for the company's focus. Seema Sistani took the reins at WW in March, but before that, she had quite a different role. Sistani founded the social video app house party, which was sold to Epic Games a few years back. She stayed on as an executive with the company before landing at WW. While gathering with friends on a video chat might seem different than calculating the WW points in three pieces of dark chocolate, Sistani's app and WW actually do have one thing in common. They're both based on community. For roughly six decades, people have been gathering at WW meetings for support and motivation.

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House party notifies you when your friends are online so you can get together via video chat. Now Sistani wants to bring WW's in person communities online, calling the company, the original social network, in a LinkedIn video posted a few months back. Resolutions aside, the weight loss industry faces new challenges in this era of body positivity. Critics of weight loss programs say that the emphasis should be on health at every size. Weight Watchers even rebranded itself a few years ago to move away from the focus on weight, although the company has started using its original moniker again, Fortune reports. Cestani, who says she used the WW program to lose 60 pounds after the birth of her first child, says the concepts of weight loss and body positivity aren't at ods over at competing weight loss app Noom employees are facing their own challenges.

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The app received a hefty half a billion dollars in new funding a year and a half ago to build on its psychology driven approach to weight loss. But a recent report in Business Insider included the experiences of ex employees who were assigned to be, quote, coaches working with people who were dealing with serious eating disorders, depression and other issues. Noom's coaches didn't have training to be psychological counselors, and they faced, quote, complex and sometimes frightening behaviors, Insider reported. In one case, a coach reportedly logged in on Monday and found a slew of messages from a Noom client who had experienced suicidal thoughts over the weekend. Even after its new funding, Noom has trimmed hundreds of coaches from its staff as it navigates these challenges, upsetting some clients as attitudes about weight loss and body image shift.

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The companies that make money trying to help people shed pounds are trying to find the right messaging and customers who actually want what they're selling. And clearly, that's no walk in the park. From wondry, this is business wars daily. I'm your host, David Brown. Written by Gwen Moran and produced by Jessica Yarmoski. Our executive producers are Tina Rubio and Marshall Louis. Hey, Prime members. You can listen to business wars daily ad free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Or you can listen ad free with Wondery plus in Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey@wondry.com. Slash Survey hi, listeners.

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