The following story appeared yesterday in both the Charlotte Observer and The News & Observer. The basic reporting was done by The New York Times; I provided the local comments. Yesterday, I ran more of those local comments in this space. The story below appears in expanded form, with links.

When Linda Helms first tried Weight Watchers four years ago, she lost weight using the venerable weight-loss program’s popular points system, but she didn’t feel like she was eating healthy.
“Sugar-free cookies, Fig Newtons, Snackwells, those used to be my snacks,” says the Mount Ulla resident. “It’s not really a bad thing,” she says of the low-calorie but processed foods, “but they’re not as healthy. Done before, you didn’t touch a banana. It was a lot of points.”
But when Weight Watchers revisited its approach last year, then tweaked it in December, Helms and her husband, Rex, were ready to recommit.
“The best part for both of us is having fruit,” says Helms, which Weight Watchers now tells the devout they can have as much of as they like. “Fruit is a far more sensible snack, and under the old points system it was almost out of the question.”
Diane L. Robrahn of Cary, who dropped out of Weight Watchers in the 1980s, agrees. “In the 80s, you had the choice between a cookie and a banana. Well, you’d choose the cookie.
“I’m so happy about the push toward natural food,” adds Robrahn, who has lost 106 pounds since rejoining Weight Watchers less than a year ago.
Millions of people around the world belong to Weight Watchers International, ranked best commercial diet plan by U.S. News & World Report last year, and even nonmembers look to it for guidance and recommendations. The 51-year-old program is best known for its points system, which assigns specific values to different foods and permits each member a daily allotment. At its weekly group meetings, healthy eating and exercise are emphasized over rapid-fire results.
The latest iteration of the weight-loss plan, called Points Plus, is intended to steer people toward more healthy food choices, encouraging people to eat more fresh fruits by giving them zero points, as most vegetables already were.
The change, Weight Watchers’ first adjustment in 13 years, annoyed some who said they haven’t been able to lose as much weight. In December, in a move that seemed to acknowledge the difficulty some dieters were having, Weight Watchers recommended that all members consider reducing their daily food intake, or points allotment, by 10 percent, not counting fruits and vegetables. (For those who’ve missed a few meetings, that means most women might cut their daily Points Plus allotment to 26 per day, down from 29.)
Weight Watchers officials say the change in points allotments was optional – that members could adjust their daily points up or down – and insist that it was not a response to members’ failure to lose weight.
“I don’t believe the pounds come off quite as fast as before,” agrees Helms, “but not being hungry keeps us from wanting to give in to bad food temptations.”
Company officials insist that the only reason Weight Watchers modified the plan was because they had become convinced members were getting more than adequate nourishment under the new plan and would not be harmed by eating less.
“We chose to be conservative when we introduced the plan, because we wanted to make sure that the things we stand for, nutritional health and well-being, weren’t going to be compromised,” said Karen Miller-Kovach, a registered dietitian who is chief scientific officer of Weight Watchers.
Still, she said the company had been following the progress of members who use online tracking tools and had found that dieters have been gaming the new system.
“People were having to circumvent the system in order to lose weight at a healthy rate,” she said.
While weight loss is important, many say they like the new program because it continues to push them in the direction of lifelong healthy eating.
“It reframes how I use food and view food,” says Swooz Brazzell of Charlotte. “As you can tell by my slow progress” — she’s lost 25 pounds in nearly two years and expects, eventually, to lose 20 more — “this system is retraining me over time to have a healthier relationship with food.”
One aspect of the new approach that has raised a professional eyebrow or two regards fruit: Under the new plan, participants can eat as much as they like.
“No single dietitian I know would count fruit as a ‘free’ food if someone is on a diet and trying to lose weight. You have to account for it,” said Marjorie Nolan, a New York City dietitian who speaks on behalf of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.
She expressed surprise that even bananas (which used to cost two points under the previous Weight Watchers plan) are zero points.
“That just doesn’t make sense,” she said. “They’re a denser fruit.”
But Dr. Jeffrey Mechanick, vice president of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, said there was no evidence that indulging in fruit impedes weight loss.
The reason fruit and most vegetables are zero points is that the formula actually “prepays” those points, Miller-Kovach said; the daily points allocation includes an allowance for what the plan has determined is a typical daily consumption of fruits and vegetables. Miller-Kovach said she could not divulge the number of fruits and vegetables used in the calculation because the information is proprietary and not revealed even to participants.
But since average consumption of fruit is low in this country, usually not reaching the five to nine servings a day recommended by government health experts, the prepayment may underestimate the effect of more liberal fruit consumption on waistlines.
Joanne Latham of Cary is on her third try with Weight Watchers. On her first two go-rounds, “We ate a ton of pretzels and a lot of frozen meals.” Low on points, low on nutrition as well. Now, she packs four to five servings of fruit in the morning and snacks on it throughout the workday.
“It keeps you from doing the vending machine thing,” says the 51-year-old Latham, who has lost 50 pounds since joining Weight Watchers May 20.
“I’m in the best shape of my life.”
Results of randomized clinical trials of the new Points Plus program have not been published in peer-reviewed journals. But two brief reports have been presented at scientific meetings on obesity, and the authors found no difference in weight loss between the old and new points plans.
In one of those studies, participants lost an average of 8.2 pounds over 12 weeks and saw significant improvements in their total cholesterol and triglyceride measures. But only 111 overweight adults completed the 12-week trial, and only 55 people were following the new Points Plus program.
Weight Watchers officials said the number of participants was sufficient to provide statistical proof that the new diet system works.
The new Points Plus plan also was evaluated in an earlier unpublished trial, Miller-Kovach said. And Weight Watchers has been following more than 12,000 members in Germany since the introduction of the new Points Plus program there. So far no differences in weight loss have been found between users of the new and old programs, she said.
Sherry Casey joined Weight Watchers the same day as Latham and has lost 35 pounds (their Weight Watchers chapter at work, Allscripts in Raleigh, has lost a cumulative 1,500 pounds between 55 participants). For her, the healthier diet promoted by the new system has had a more profound impact than weight loss.
“My family has a history of heart disease, and I had high blood pressure and cholesterol,” says Casey, of Cary. Now, she says, those numbers are in check.
“My grandmother died at 56,” Casey said. “I’m 51. I felt that’s just too young to die.”

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In today’s Charlotte Observer and The News & Observer is a story on Weight Watchers‘ shift within the past year to the Points Plus system, which WW said was intended to steer people toward more healthy food choices. One change under the new plan: encourage people to eat more fresh fruits by giving them zero points. The guts of the reporting is from the New York Times; I added the local comments.

Alas, there was not room enough to include all the comments, the majority of which came from solicitations post on both papers’ online sites. I won’t include all 45 of the comments here; rather, a brief summation of how people feel about the new system plus select comments that capture the prevailing sentiment.

As I mentioned, 45 people responded. Thirty-seven spoke favorably of the new Points Plus system, five weren’t crazy about it and dropped the program, three weren’t initially initially crazy about it but were giving it another try. (A small contingent wrote to complain about their weekly meeting location being moved.)

Of those who didn’t like the change, some saw it more of an opportunity for Weight Watchers to make more money. “Of course, the changes they made caused everything that their members had purchased in the past (points calculators, cookbooks, etc) to be obsolete,” wrote Susan Gordon. “… I do agree that carbs, sugars, starches need to be controlled in order to have a truly healthy diet and weight loss. But there were so many ways they could have done that and not caused loyal followers to spend unnecessary money…..especially in these difficult times. Shame on them!”

Of Weight Watchers introducing the new program early last year, then tweaking it in December based on consumer feedback, Peggy Myers didn’t appreciate being “guinea pigs for the new system. … WW ‘tweaked’ the new system based on a year of data from people who paid to be unwitting members of the experiment.”

Kathy Squires initially found the new system “cumbersome.” But her husband convinced her to get the Points Plus app for her smartphone, which lets her scan items and calculate points instantly. “I find using the app much easier and less time consuming than using the traditional method (calculator).”

Amy Clipston had success under the old program, losing 59 pounds after having her first son in 2001 and 65 pounds after her second son was born in 2005. But the weight kept coming back. “The old program wasn’t working for me anymore, and the new Points Plus was the boost I needed to lose weight before donating a kidney,” she wrote. That donation came last year after losing 30 pounds on the new program.

Likewise, Ronnye Boone lost weight through Weight Watchers in the early 1990s and has lost 43 pounds since rejoining a year ago. “The Points Plus plan is easy to follow – no food is off limits, which is wonderful,” wrote Boone.

Boone also likes that Points Plus stresses activity, awarding points — which can be redeemed for food — for exercising. “In addition to the changes I have made in making better food choices,” Boone says, “I also started walking and am now walking 5-6 miles a couple times a week.”

“I had been sedentary for years and thought, ‘I can’t exercise!’” added Cati Montgomery. “They said, ‘Hey, just start out easy. Just walk 10 minutes a day.’ And I did. Now I routinely spend 60-90 minutes on a treadmill daily!”

Points Plus’s emphasis on cleaner eating drew widespread praise.

“Having seen every iteration of WW plan since 1999,” wrote Jennifer Hynes, “I have to say this one is the smartest. It takes all the best parts of previous plans and amps them up with a focus on fresh foods, unprocessed and ‘cleaner’ eating. It’s more balanced and more nutritious.  Some would say it is more like a common-sense approach to eating, but people like me need the support and accountability that Weight Watchers provides.”

The free pass on fruit was also widely praised.

“I now spend more money in produce and love to buy fruits and veggies!” wrote Kristen Roulette, who has lost 40 pounds since joining Weight Watchers last June. “I was never much of a fruit eater; however, on this plan fruits are FREE and I have really started enjoying them!”

Several respondents noted that Weight Watchers, especially under the new Points Plus system, isn’t the fastest way to lose weight. The growing emphasis on healthy eating, they said, is a tradeoff: lose less now, but stick with the program and you’ll keep it off.

“WW does not fall into the American culture of instant gratification,” wrote Margie Tippett, who has lost 35 pounds since August. “The average weight loss per week is 1/2 to two pounds. My average per week was just over one pound. Weight that comes off slowly, in a healthy real-food way, tends to stay off longer.”

“It’s a health plan that can easily be followed for life,” agreed Janet Tart. “It’s more than a diet, it’s a lifestyle change.”

Here’s what that “lifestyle change” has meant for Tart since losing 70 pounds and keeping it off for nearly a year now:

“When I started the Weight Watchers program I was a very unhealthy overweight person who was exhausted all the time. I am now a very healthy, energetic wife, mother, and business owner who loves myself and loves life. Since meeting my weight loss goal in April of 2011, I have become an AEA certified professional aquatic  instructor. I teach water aerobics classes, participate in spinning classes, lift weights, do punch boxing, etc., all while running my own busy income tax office. I also have done a couple of public speaking engagements to women’s organizations about diet, health, and exercise. Weight Watcher’s Points Plus program has changed me into a new woman.”

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