Weight Watchers was founded by Jean Nidetch in the middle of the 1960’s and her goal was to offer service and assistance to those who were looking to lose weight. She therefore offered to these people different products which helped them when dieting and thus lose the weight. Her early success in this field has now turned into a successful world wide company which operates in more than 30 countries and goes by the trademark name of “Weight Watchers"; however this can be translated into the local language of any given country if required.

Weight Watchers is made up of two different programs that a dieter can follow being either the Core program or the Points program. Each program that a dieter chooses to follow is supported by a group that helps when needed most such as during group discussions and accountability (ensuring that the dieter is reaching their target weight).

The Points program is a program which puts a numerical value on a person’s burning of energy and their actual calorie intake. Each serving of food that they consume is given a number of points and conversely different styles of exercise undertaken by a dieter will be given a negative point(s). So during a certain week each dieter will have a certain number of points that they must try to hit in accordance with the overall weight loss they wish to attain and their actual current weight.

Certainly is this respect this is where the Weight Watchers program is so very different from either the South Beach or Atkins Diets as a person on this program is not limited to what foods they can eat, but rather to how much of that food they are allowed to consume. For example, should someone wish to each more of one food that has a high points value, then they must carry out the appropriate exercise and watch the other foods that they eat throughout the rest of the week to counterbalance it. Certainly the amount of exercise that a person takes whilst on a Weight Watchers program is correlated to just how much exercise that person wants to do. So if they decide that they do not want to exercise or exercise only a little, then they can not eat as many points compared with someone who is exercising regularly, and such people can eat those foods which have a higher point’s value.

Unfortunately this type of diet is not to everyone’s liking as it makes the person accountable for what they are doing and does not allow any room for cheating. So if someone wishes to cheat on this diet, they will not be harming anyone else but themselves and their chance to lose the weight. The most annoying thing about this diet is the record keeping, a lot of people find this cumbersome as they have to make sure that they record every single food item they have eaten throughout the day and make sure that they give a point value to each item of food, if they do not then it means that they will not necessarily succeed in their overall goal of removing the unwanted weight.