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Weight Watchers Group 4- Weight Watchers Chelsea Knudsen, Brent Lawless, Josh Shulman, Kaylan Porter Topic: Our group was assigned the weight loss program Weight Watchers. We wanted to take a look at the program’s perceived success or failure against the program’s real world success or failure. To do this, we plan to survey both members of Weight Watcher’s as well as the general public (Geneseo students) and compare those results to real-world findings. The librarian who aided us in our research was Liz Argentieri. Sources do not need to be numbered, they should just be listed alphabetically. These should come after the text as in a normal essay. Ahh... now I see the you've attached the final References Cited as a Word document. Remove the draft references immediately below. I asked for everything on one page in part so I can easily edit/note problems. Your References Cited is not divided into Scholarly/Peer-Reviewed and Other References Cited (at least one of your sources is "Other") , and there are some errors (Elsevier, a publisher, is listed as a journal title, some other minor problems). These minor issues will not lower your grade in any major way but its always impressive to see students/groups who follow the guidelines very closely. Source 1: Jebb, Susan 2011 Primary Care Referral to a Commercial Provider for Weight Loss Treatment Versus Standard Care: A Randomised Controlled Trial. The Lancet 378 (9801): 1485-1492. This article gives a detailed look into a research study (funded by Weight Watchers International) designed to compare the effectiveness of adhering to the Weight Watchers program as opposed to standard treatment in primary care as outlined by one’s doctor. The results show that by following the Weight Watchers guidelines, participants lost more than twice the weight during the 12-month study as did those who received standard care. Source 2: Wadden, Thomas A 2005 Systematic Review: An Evaluation of Major Commercial Weight Loss Programs in the United States. Annals of Internal Medicine 142 (1): 56-66. ProQuest Research Library, http://search.proquest.com/docview/222257495/134C9BA94A5550B607B/7?accountid=11072, accessed February 9, 2012. This article discusses a study done to compare Weight Watchers to other popular commercial diets. Weight Watchers was specifically compared to Jenny Craig and LA Weight Loss. The article discusses some of the different features of these three diet plans, as well as their success. Weight Watchers had the best statistics of the three based on initial percentage of weight lost, and the percentage of weight kept off after two years. All though the author says that more controlled experiments on Jenny Craig and LA Weight loss are necessary to make any large claims about which program is best, this source is a good starting point when examining the perception and actual success of Weight Watchers. Source 3: Ahern, Amy L., Ashley D Olson, Louise M. Aston, and Susan A. Jebb 2011 Weight Watchers on Prescription: An Observational Study of Weight Change Among Adults Referred to Weight Watchers by the NHS. BMC Public Health 11(1): 434-438. EBSCOhost, http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=48fe83c0-c4f2-4c4e-a44a-6f7ec8d489cb% 40sessionmgr112&vid=3&hid=122, accessed February 10, 2012. This article discusses a study done by the National Health Service amongst overweight adults in the United Kingdom. Although the NHS has partnerships with certain commercial weight loss services, no studies were done to address how effective these services were. This particular study is conducted using the Weight Watchers program. The results found show that one-third of weight loss patients using Weight Watchers had lost more than five percent of their body fat, which is comparable to treatment possibilities in primary care. The effectiveness of the weight-loss relied on the will and ability of the individual to maintain their 12-week program. Source 4: Dansinger, Michael L. and Joi Augustin Gleason and John L. Griffith and Harry P. Selker and Ernest J. Schaefer. 2005 Comparison of the Atkins, Ornish, Weight Watchers, and Zone Diets for Weight Loss and Heart Disease Risk Reduction. Journal of the American Medical Assoication January 2003, http://jama.ama-assn.org/conte/293/1/43.abstract, accessed February 7, 2012. This article discusses the effectiveness of four types weight loss programs (Atkins, Zone, Ornish, Weight Watchers). This study was run from July 2000 to January 2002. It concluded that weight loss was low after 1 year, for all diets, though other health factors were affected as well, such as lowering of cardiac risk factors. This study also provides a background to compare the result we obtain to other popular weight loss methods. Figure 1: Weight Watchers "Treat Yourself Better" Ad Campaign, http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising- branding/ad-day-weight-watchers-137591 The above is our preliminary research on our topic. After having conducted more research, we have concluded the following: Abstract: Weight Watchers is a company that aims to help its clients control their weight. As a way to do this, Weight Watchers offers various dietary products and services aimed to help clients lose weight and keep it off. Weight Watchers is in a competitive market with the likes of Jenny Craig, Nutrisystem, and Atkins, amongst many others. After starting in the United States, Weight Watchers has spread abroad to over 30 countries under a name with a locally similar translation to Weight Watchers. While many dieting programs are full of gross (the word gross is too informal in this context; trivializes your research) low-fat food, Weight Watchers takes a very different approach. They allow clients to eat whatever kind of food they want based on a point system. Different kinds of food are assigned different numeric points, therefore, clients can eat as they wish as long as they stay under their point limit for the day. This helps to ensure that the person undergoing the program is maintaining a calorie deficit to make sure that no unnecessary weight calories will be added. In addition, Weight Watchers uses a social approach to weight loss through support groups. Different individuals undergoing the Weight Watchers program will meet in groups in which they have an interactive group experience focused on their weight issues. The foundation laid down by Weight Watchers is a client’s first step toward living a healthier lifestyle. While still sticking to maintaining the Weight Watchers point based eating system, many find it effective to exercise and to begin healthier eating habits. Perhaps the most important lesson taken from Weight Watchers is the importance on of beginning to lower the amount of food the overweight individual eats to a much more manageable level. Introduction: We aim to compare the public’s perception of Weight Watchers to the actual effectiveness of the weight loss program. Initially, we did background research about the program based on studies that have been conducted prior to our own research. After that, we created a survey as a way to get some understanding on how our peers feel about the Weight Watchers. Our survey size was a randomized selection of students on the State University of New York at Geneseo. This provided us with a good basis concerning the public’s awareness on the program, what it aims to accomplish, as well as their understanding of how the service works. We were able to compare the results we compiled to results we found in the many studies we researched and were able to draw several parallels. Also, we managed to compare the effectiveness of Weight Watchers client’s weight loss to people undergoing similar commercial weight loss plans. Ethnographic Methods In comparing statistics on Weight Watchers to public perception, different types of research methods had to be used. Online databases allowed us access to scholarly and peer-reviewed articles on the statistics of Weight Watchers. Discovering how our peers view the program, however, involved more work. We used the ethnographic method of surveys to gather data on the public perception of Weight Watchers. Ethnographic research involves observing how people in their own environment interact. Some of these methods include interviewing, participant observation, and surveying. We chose to conduct a survey so that we could quickly gather a lot of data that is easily analyzed. We surveyed sixty one SUNY Geneseo students between the ages of 18 and 26. Our survey involved questions about gender, age, past dieting experience, and perceptions of Weight Watchers. We asked students to rate how strongly they believed in the ideas that Weight Watchers instills good diet and exercise habits, as well as Weight Watchers being a sustainable and effective way to lose weight. Results from Ethnographic Methods Some of the main things we were looking to find from our surveys were how gender correlated with perceptions of Weight Watchers, as well as if past dieting habits had an effect on the perception of Weight Watchers. It is important to note that the sample surveyed were all college students. This is important to note because those surveyed all have high levels of education and are more likely to be aware of health related issues than a genuine random sample of the entire population. good point One interesting finding was the correlation between gender and perception of Weight Watchers. We found that men were giving “neutral” or “somewhat agree” responses to questions asking if Weight Watchers is a good program for success. But, the men also said that they would probably never try Weight Watchers. Women, on the other hand, said that they thought Weight Watchers was a very effective and sustainable program and that it instilled good dieting and exercising habits.
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