Hello will_fawcett~
Weight Watchers was established by Jean Nidetch. In 1961, Ms. Nidetch
called a group of friends over to her house in Queens (New York) to
discuss a meal plan that had been given to her by a dietician. In a
sort of A.A. fashion, Nidetch confessed to her friends that she was
obsessed with cookies. The friends began meeting frequently, and they
all lost weight. Soon, about 40 people were gathering. To Nidetch, the
meetings were all about getting support and encouragement. Others in
the group agreed, and the meetings were so popular, Nidetch began
holding them at a business location.
In 1963, Nidetch joined up with Al Lippert and the two founded a
company: Weight Watchers. The first meeting was unadvertised, but 400
people attended, attracted by the friendly and supportive nature of
the group. Former members began opening franchises throughout the
world. Gradually, the company began looking at ?scientific areas,? in
an effort to make weight loss more effective. The company developed a
Food Plan, which has changed as ideas about what is healthy and what
is not have changed. A ?behavior management program? was developed by
a psychologist, and in 1978, an exercise plan was implemented. Weight
Watchers claims they were among the first organizations to tout the
importance of walking as exercise.
In 1978, Weight Watchers was sold to the H.J. Heinz Company (which has
been in the news frequently lately, reminding Americans that it?s
non-partisan.). Weight Watchers now has about 1.5 million members in
30 countries. The company now also offers pre-packaged food,
manufactured by the Weight Watchers Gourmet Food Company (an affiliate
of H.J. Heinz).
Heinz is one of the world?s largest food producers. According to
Yahoo! Finance, ?The company's leading brands include Ore-Ida frozen
potatoes (which has more than 50% of the branded potato market share)
and Weight Watchers foods.? (?H.J. Heinz Company Profile,?
http://biz.yahoo.com/ic/10/10693.html ) For more corporate information
on Heinz, see ?H.J. Heinz Company,? P.R. Newswire:
http://www.prnewswire.com/cnoc/HNZcorp_prof1.html
Heinz is a public company. Artal Luxumberg, a European investment
company, owns 94% of Weight Watchers. There?s very little negative
press about Heinz; the negative things I was able to dig up centered
around the following story:
?Heinz investigating formula linked to sick Israeli babies,? Nov.
2003, Pittsburgh Business Times:
http://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/stories/2003/11/10/daily10.html
(an article about the recall of kosher infant formula produced by a
company in Israel, which Heinz owns 51% of.)
Despite a lot of talk to the contrary, it appears that Heinz is a U.S.
based company and has not outsourced in the sense that it?s replaced
American workers with foreign workers. It has, however, set up
factories and offices throughout the world, to keep up with it?s
global business. (60% of it?s sales come from outside the U.S.A.)
In addition, Heinz is actively involved in ?good works,? like offering
the H.J. Heinz Humanitarian Award, and working with charities such as
UNICEF: ?Iron Man,? Edge:
?http://www.research.utoronto.ca/edge/fall2002/research.html )
Whether Weight Watchers is ?cynical? or not is really a matter of
personal opinion. From the information provided here and in the links,
I hope you can draw your own conclusions about the company.
Regards,
Kriswrite
"history of Weight Watchers"
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=%22history+of+Weight+Watchers%22&btnG=Search
H.J. Heinz Company
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