If there’s one thing WeightWatchers is known for, it’s the social resources it provides around dieting, complete with nutritional education and community support groups. For decades, the company focused on helping people lose weight by educating them about food, eating triggers, and more. Now, for the first time, the company is expanding that approach to include weight loss drugs. Since the spring, when WeightWatchers acquired the digital health company Sequence, the program has provided members access to doctors who can prescribe weight loss drugs like buproprion, as well as the latest that have swept social media: Wegovy and Zepbound. Earlier today, the company formally launched WeightWatchers Clinic, its telehealth service that connects members with health care providers who will first determine if they qualify for a weight loss medication, and then figure out which one is right for them and help them navigate getting coverage through their insurance if applicable. “We are no longer a consumer retail brand; we are a digital health company,” WeightWatchers CEO Sima Sistani told me about its evolving mission. WeightWatchers is also adding a program designed to help those on Wegovy and Zepbound get the nutrition they need: for example, the protein necessary to maintain healthy muscle mass (since the drugs are so effective at reducing appetite that some patients don't eat enough). Sistani says adding weight loss medications reflects the shifting way the medical community is starting to manage overweight and obesity: as a chronic medical condition that is best treated with a combination of biological methods like medications, and behavioral changes like the nutritional and psychosocial skills for which WeightWatchers has long been known. READ THE REST |
