The Rhetoric of Weight Watchers

For over 40 years, Weight Watchers has helped millions of people around the world lose weight. Ever since it’s conception in the early ’60s, the program has become a rock in the weight loss industry. While other fad diets have come and go over the decades, Weight Watchers has remained as a significant, reliable approach to losing weight. The program began in 1961 when Jean Nidetch began inviting friends to her home each week to offer one another support during their struggle with weight loss. Over the years, Weight Watchers has evolved to incorporate not only weight loss, but nutrition, physical activity and making good life decisions into their program.

The Weight Watchers program, like most healthy diets, is based on balancing food intake with exercise. The program guides healthy weight loss by encouraging members to keep track of what they eat and make healthy decisions about food and exercise. However, Weight Watchers’ key to success is their mission to treat weight loss as a “lifestyle change” rather than just another diet. By attending meetings each week or becoming Internet members, participants are encouraged to share their experiences, support each other and take advantage of the wealth of tools and information available to them through Weight Watchers.

The difference between Weight Watchers and most other diet programs is that Weight Watchers offers members the ability to communicate and support each other through their weight loss experience, all the while encouraging members to make decisions that are right for them as individuals. Also, Weight Watchers has recently supplemented its program with online eTools and expanded to incorporate more flexible eating plans, such as the new TurnAround�® plan that enables members to choose either the Flex PlanPOINTS�® option or the new Core Plan, which involves no POINTS counting at all.

The continued success of Weight Watchers over the past 40 years can be attributed to its positive rhetorical approach that motivates members to join, participate, attain goals and remain members for life. The rhetoric of Weight Watchers is epideictic, comprised of identification, transformation and appeals to ethos, logos and pathos.

Weight Watchers as Epideictic Rhetoric
The Weight Watchers program relies heavily on the practice of epideictic rhetoric, praising members throughout their participation. Praise is the backbone of Weight Watchers’ success. The rewards members receive each week at their meetings are a form of positive reinforcement, encouraging them to continue practicing what they learn on their own in between meetings. From the moment members join Weight Watchers, they are showered with rewards, such as a book of free coupons for healthy foods that are low in POINTS. Meetings are also based on praise – members are provided with the opportunity to share their own experiences with the group and are rewarded for their participation with “Bravo!” stickers that they can keep in their Member Books. While a sticker may seem like a simplistic form of praise, it can be extremely heartening to flip through a book and see the progress you have made and rewards you have earned over the previous weeks as a member. Weight Watchers members are also praised for losing weight and making good choices each week with applause from the group and more “Bravo!” stickers.
A more formal reward is given each time a member reaches a specific milestone in his or her weight loss. After a member loses five pounds, he or she receives a red bookmark that reads, “I lost 5 pounds!” Each subsequent five pounds is rewarded with a “5” sticker in the shape of a star that can be placed on the bookmark or Member Book. When a member reaches their first official goal – losing ten percent of body weight – a keychain in the shape of a 10 is given to that member to serve as a constant reminder of the accomplishment that has been achieved and as motivation to continue down the path of success.

Of course, the ultimate reward that can be achieved by a Weight Watchers member is the status of Lifetime Member. Lifetime Membership is a privilege that is awarded when a member reaches a weight goal and maintains that weight for six weeks. Once awarded with Lifetime Membership status, a member may attend meetings anywhere in the world free of charge, provided he or she maintains that healthy weight and weighs in at a meeting at least once per month. In addition, Lifetime Members are eligible to apply for employment with Weight Watchers. This ultimate form of praise is persuasive in several ways: (1) a member wants to earn the pride and recognition associated with becoming a Lifetime Member, (2) a member wants to benefit from the monetary exemptions given to Lifetime Members, and (3) a member may enjoy the program so much that the chance becoming a Weight Watchers employee is a very attractive objective to reach.

Although Weight Watchers praises members regularly, the program steers clear of pointing the finger at members who stray from the routine and are unsuccessful for a week or two. However, despite the fact that blame is never made public, the tools and information necessary to be successful in the program are made so available that there is really no one to blame but yourself if you fail. The manner in which Weight Watchers is presented leaves no room for scapegoating – there is no one else to hold accountable for a lack of self-control or inability to follow the clear instructions provided by the program. In a way, even though blame is never presented in an accusatory manner, the fact that members know that they must hold themselves accountable for their actions is an essential motivating factor for their participation to accomplish their goals.

Weight Watchers and Identification

Weight Watchers’ most appealing benefit is that it provides a setting for members to identify with each other in a supportive group. While members may have many different motives for initially joining the program, the all have the same ultimate goal, and will therefore identify with each other. In addition, members share similar experiences and knowledge, becoming a support network for each other.

Once a member, an individual begins to identify with the components that make up the program. One of the first and most obvious identifications that every member realizes is with POINTS. The POINTS system is Weight Watchers’ method for measuring the precise amount of food intake for each member based on his or her body weight and activity level. Mention POINTS in any location and Weight Watchers members will perk up. Weight Watchers members incorporate POINTS into their lives daily – every time they see food, think about food, exercise, attend a meeting, discuss the program or fill out their weekly journals, Weight Watchers members are identifying with POINTS. POINTS are every member’s basic instrument for achieving weight loss success through Weight Watchers.

Weight Watchers members also identify specific foods that they eat or contemplate eating with POINTS values. Whereas a non-member looks at food and sees only food, a Weight Watchers member looks at food and sees POINTS. Members will then identify the food as a good choice or a bad choice, using its POINTS value to make the ultimate decision about whether or not to actually consume the food.

Weight Watchers has coined many other terms, practices and tools to provide to members in addition to POINTS. The benefits and knowledge bestowed upon Weight Watchers creates a sort of “us/them” scenario – those that are “on-program” and those that are not. While a more obvious us/them scenario may appear to be healthy people versus unhealthy people, this scenario makes little sense since healthy people who have never been on Weight Watchers are (1) not a target audience for the program and (2) not the goal of the program. Ideally, the goal of a Weight Watchers member is to lose weight and become a healthy Lifetime Member, not to become a healthy person who is not associated with Weight Watchers. For this reason, the first us/them scenario makes much more sense. Those that choose to participate in Weight Watchers and be on-program are associated with “good,” while those that choose remain unhealthy or choose alternate “quick fix” diets to lose weight are thought of as “bad.”

Weight Watchers and Transformation

A new member may join Weight Watchers because he or she identifies with terms like “overweight,” “fat,” “unhealthy,” “frustrated,” “unfit,” “lazy” and “alone.” This person believes that by following the Weight Watchers program, he or she will be able to transform these negative identifications into new, positive ones such as “thin,” “healthy,” “in control,” “active,” “dedicated” and “supported.” The desire for this transformation is a member’s agency or motive for participating in the Weight Watchers program. Weight Watchers provides a scene for members to identify with each other during this transformation.

One of the basic tenets of success for Weight Watchers is the principle of changing one’s behavior and lifestyle in order to reinvent one’s self – in other words, the program encourages its members to not only lose weight, but create a transformation in their lives. The Weight Watchers program teaches members that creating a change on the “outside” (taking actions to lose weight) is closely linked with creating a change on the “inside” (what you believe about your ability to lose weight). Weight Watchers provides members with 10 Tools for LivingÃ?® to manage their thoughts and feelings towards weight loss – in essence, helping them persuade themselves to make right choices to lead them to success.

Weight Watchers’ Tools for Living are a set of motivational techniques provided to members to put them in the right frame of mind to make the changes necessary to reach their goals. For example, the first tool, Winning Outcomes, enables members to identify exactly what they want to accomplish at Weight Watchers by offering an outline to construct a positive, specific, attainable long-term or short-term goal. Most of the Tools for Living concentrate on setting goals and mapping out routes to accomplish those goals. Some of the tools such as Mental Rehearsing also use imagery, and others tools such as Anchoring use symbolism to encourage members to stay on the path to success.

Ultimately, the transformation of an individual that takes place during their time as a Weight Watchers member results in the dialectic partnership of “indulgence” and “control.” Control is an obvious opposite of indulgence when it comes to food intake, where having to limit, regulate or contain one’s urges and cravings sound just unbearable compared with having the freedom to treat oneself to whatever one hungers for. However, over the course of a few Weight Watchers meetings, the definitive transformation that takes place results not only in a member’s ability to see past the negative connotation of controlling his or her behavior, but to see that control as a better form of indulgence because of the mental and physical gratification that is experienced in the long run.

Weight Watchers’ Modes of Persuasion

Weight Watchers caters to such a wide variety of people in all shapes and sizes from very different backgrounds. The ability to attract, motivate and maintain such a vast audience is possible for Weight Watchers because the program presents all of the characteristics of an effective argument by making viable, sensible appeals to all three modes of persuasion – ethos, logos and pathos.

Weight Watchers makes a convincing appeal to ethos in several ways. First, the organization is overseen by a professional scientific advisory board comprised of eight credible doctors. The scientific advisory board works to make certain that the Weight Watchers weight loss program reflects the latest in scientific thinking and weight loss techniques. The program is constantly adapted and improved upon to include new ways of tracking food intake and new motivational techniques to keep members on track. Additionally, all employees of Weight Watchers – including Meeting Leaders and Receptionists – are Lifetime Members within 10 pounds of their healthy Weight Watchers goal weight. Therefore, every member of the Weight Watchers team has a vested interest in the program and is a credible example of successful involvement in the program.

Weight Watchers’ most practical mode of persuasion is that of logos. Most of what members learn from Weight Watchers is based on one fundamental, logical idea – a person can control their weight based on their calorie intake and exercise habits – that is supported by scientific evidence and expert testimony. The Weight Watchers program is based on two distinct approaches to structure eating habits to prompt weight loss. The Flex Plan allows members to eat any food in moderation by assigning each food a POINTS value (based on fat, calories and dietary fiber content) and assigning each member a POINTS Target based on current body weight. The logic of the Flex Plan is simple – choosing foods to meet the allotted POINTS Target will ensure a steady, healthy rate of weight loss. The second approach, the Core Plan, focuses on controlling calories by choosing specific, wholesome, nutritious foods without the hassle of counting POINTS. The Core Plan food list is comprised of pre-selected foods from all of the food groups. The logic of the Core Plan is simple, as well – choosing only wholesome, nutritious foods in moderation will ensure a steady, healthy rate of weight loss. Both of these plans are supplemented by Weight Watchers’ Healthy Eating Guidelines, which recommend that members consume at least five servings of fruits and vegetables, have at least two servings of milk, drink at least six glasses of water, take a multiple-vitamin supplement, limit sugars and alcohol intake, choose whole grain foods whenever possible and exercise on a daily basis.

Lastly, while credibility and logic are very persuasive techniques, Weight Watchers makes a significant appeal to pathos – an appeal that sets their program apart from almost all other diet plans. Weight Watchers support meetings are a place for members to share their personal experiences and give each other tips and advice. Weight Watchers’ guidebooks and Internet site are resplendent with success stories, quotes and before and after photos of real people, and even the leaders that run each meeting have success stories to share about their personal weight loss journeys. Furthermore, Weight Watchers Tools for Living are specifically designed to encourage each member to deal with the thoughts and feelings that influence weight loss behavior, and all of Weight Watchers’ books and handouts use motivational language and phrases that appeal to members’ emotions, making them feel capable and successful. By placing a significant amount of emphasis on the emotional aspect of weight loss, Weight Watchers has been extremely successful in recruiting and maintaining members over the past 40 years.

Conclusion
As Weight Watchers has grown and developed over the past four decades, the art of rhetoric has served the program well. Weight Watchers has perfected the ability to attract, motivate and maintain members by influencing its audience with a positive rhetorical approach to the process of weight loss. As long as the program continues to stay up-to-date with the scientific aspect of nutrition and weight loss, its rhetorical methods of identification and transformation along with convincing appeals to ethos, logos and pathos will ensure Weight Watchers’ continued prosperity in the future.