Scorching
Yow. There is a wicked bitter conversation going on at Elastic Waist about the points program and WW's newest ad campaign. Which, to be fair, I haven't seen.
I know that Weight Watchers isn't perfect. I've gone through the pros and cons of Core and Flex. I've commiserated with friends who have crazy low Points Targets due to their smallness of frame. But if you need structure, this gives you structure. And maybe you have to tweak it a little. If you're not eating enough? Add a couple more points, see how that goes.
Personally, Vitamin W has been a help to me staying on program so far. As I've said, switching back to counting points has been painless. So the program hasn't changed, but I have changed a little. Although, I can't say that everyone who "fails" at Weight Watchers doesn't need to be on medication. But there's definitely people with food issues at the WW meetings, and that's one of the reasons I'm online only. And that attitude of "good week = loss, anything else = bad week" has to stop, and that should be a directive from the corporate level on down.
I don't know. Go read the comments over there (bring your fireproof oven mitts), and let me know what you think over here.
ETA: Here's Hubby's take on it:Personally I would not be into the group aspect of it at all.
I think the point counting thing could be useful if a person just isn't realizing how much they're eating or how little they're exercising. For example, people might way-underestimate the number of calories in a coffee from starbucks. If they're forced to count the points, then they'll estimate that correctly and make better decisions.
I think there are a lot of people who do have confusion on those kinds of basic facts, and so I can see this helping people with that. But there are also a lot of people who have problems unrelated to information -- they know perfectly well that eating a carton of ice cream isn't good for them, but they do it anyway. That's a whole other dimension that WW doesn't really address. That sort of thing needs either (1) therapy or (2) drugs, depending on whether the source of the problem is environmental or biological....
...It's for people with bad habits or bad information who have the emotional and cognitive ability to take advantage of new information in order to develop better habits. For example, I can imagine that someone in their 40s who has been gaining a pound a year for 20 years might benefit from WW.
But people with more serious issues probably need more than just WW. I don't think everyone would benefit from vit W, but I could imagine that there are a variety of biological and personality problems that go above and beyond what WW can address. For the biological problems there are often medications (if the person is lucky -- I'm sure there are plenty of biological problems for which no meds yet exist) and for the personality problems there's therapy.
There ya go, from someone who's watched me lose and gain the same 35 pounds over the last almost-5 years.