'Core Plan' focuses on whole foods instead of pointsBy Jon Bonné
MSNBC
Updated: 6:15 p.m. ET Aug. 24, 2004

Point-counters can throw away their calculators.

Facing shrinking enrollment from carb-cowering Americans, Weight Watchers
has unveiled the first major change to its diet plan in a decade: adding a
new weight-loss program that focuses on nutritious food that fills stomachs
without packing on calories.

The Core Plan, as it is called, consists of a list of approved items from
every food group that can be eaten with almost no regard to portion size.
Like the company's well-known point system, it allows dieters some small
indulgences. And, in a turn that will please dieters who crave some
variety, the new plan is interchangable with points so people can switch
between the two plans, which together will now be called the TurnAround
program, as frequently as once per week.

"We tell people, eat as much of the core foods as you need to feel
satisfied," said Karen Miller-Kovach, Weight Watchers' chief scientific
officer. "It allows people the flexibility so that they don't have to be
perfect."

The new program resembles certain other diet programs, notably the
Volumetrics weight plan, in that it focuses on high-volume foods with a low
energy density.

The Core Plan will focus on broth-based soups, as well as leaner meats,
fresh produce, whole grains and nonfat dairy products. As with Weight
Watchers' current system, it includes menu suggestions at popular
restaurants. Many suggestions are similar to those noted by the federal
panel revising the nation's food pyramid, before which Weight Watchers
officials testified.

Members can find details at Weight Watchers locations or on the company's
Web site.

No 'trigger foods'
What's not on the list of approved foods? White rice, some breakfast
cereals and nonfat yogurt packaged with fruit, among others. In designing
the plan over the past 18 months and testing it on 10,000 volunteers,
Weight Watchers identified these as "trigger foods," items people said they
kept eating too frequently.

The program will also ask members to evaluate their food "comfort zone"
every few hours on a five-point scale, with the goal being right in the
middle -- not too full, not too hungry. As with the point system, Core
dieters should be able to lose between one and two pounds per week.

The goal is a balanced diet that encourages moderate eating, with an
emphasis on whole foods and little use of processed products.

"It sounds reasonable and it sounds totally sane," said New York University
nutrition researcher Lisa Young. "This is what we've been saying as
nutritionists for years and years."

The new effort is also a bid to head off shrinking attendance at Weight
Watchers' 46,000 weekly meetings -- especially in its North American
locations, where attendance was down nearly 17 percent last quarter, even
more than the 4 percent decline the previous quarter.

While low-carb options like the Atkins diet were initially blamed for the
shrinkage, the company's own watchers on Wall Street pointed to the
company's structured programs. The focus on regular meeting attendance may
have turned off dieters who have grown accustomed to less formal plans,
said the analysts, who have been awaiting details of the new plan since at
least April. FlexPoints, Weight Watcher's 2003 modification of its
long-standing point system, gave dieters more options but did little to
improve membership.

By contrast, Atkins Nutritionals focuses on its books and food products
rather than an in-person approach.

"A key problem for Weight Watchers is attracting new members," said
Citigroup Smith Barney analyst Greg Badishkanian, who recently downgraded
the company's stock. "Are they more focused on sort of a quick fix? Are
they more focused on going on the Internet, reading a book, or do they want
to go to the meetings?"

Looking for rules
The Weight Watchers staff noticed something else. Dieters in the United
States were often turning to low-carb options like Atkins and the South
Beach diet, while many of its European clients had stopped attending in
favor of other acute diet plans like combined foods, which allows dieters
to mix certain foods but not others.

"It made us say, 'Something's going on. Why are people trying these
approaches?'" said Miller-Kovach.

Their conclusion? Consumers were flocking to those diets because of their
specificity: Eat this, don't eat that. The Core Plan is meant to offer that
sort of rigorous guidance to those who want it, including clients who were
scared off by the flexibility (and the dinner-table math) of
point-counting.

Whether it will appeal to current and new potential clients is harder to
tell. The Weight Watchers approach, which highlights not only diet advice
but exercise plans and the social bonding at its meetings, may be a tough
sell to the millions of do-it-yourself dieters in the United States. And
habits take a while to change. Badishkanian noted that the company's share
of profits from meetings shrank for seven straight years, from 1990 to
1997.

But there are also signs that fad diets are losing popularity among
Americans, two-thirds of whom the government now considers overweight or
obese. While a recent study by research firm TFS NFO found nearly six in 10
people were neither on a diet nor an eating program, 70 percent of those
who weren't said they were still cutting certain foods out of their diets.

The apparent shift could help Weight Watchers, which has staked its claim
on long-term solutions. It is also a tasty morsel to many nutritionists,
who have long criticized short-term diets.

"You can do anything for three weeks," said Miller-Kovach, "but when those
three weeks are over, you still have your life to live."