Slimming World Magazine

Reviewed by Dietitian, Juliette Kellow BSc RD

Fact File - Slimming World Magazine

Issue reviewed:	April/May 2005
Pages:	116, 21% Advertising
Circulation:	261,426
Cover Price:	£2.35

Content

Slimming World mag focuses on success stories and food, with just a few features and a little beauty and fitness.

Overall view

This magazine is jam-packed with success stories – this issue includes seven reader weight-loss wins compared with the usual three or four found in other slimming mags. The stories are all really inspiring and include slimmers of all ages and weight loss achievements. For example, the youngest slimmer was 23 and the oldest 49, while the smallest weight loss was 2st 10lb and the greatest, 12st 5lb. Better still, the ‘after’ pictures are great – the slimmers are all wearing fashionable clothes and are photographed in nice locations.

In Detail

Sadly, the food content isn’t as great. Yes, the photography is lovely and the recipes look tasty, but they’re completely tied into the Slimming World Food Optimising philosophy. This means they’re all coded with red or green symbols and include information about Syns and Free Foods – but there’s no calorie or fat information. This makes them completely useless for anyone who’s not a member of Slimming World and wants to include them as part of a calorie-controlled or low-fat diet. Meanwhile, there’s no diet plan to follow – and any information that’s given about Food Optimising simply makes it look incredibly complicated.

There are very few features and these tend not to be related directly to slimming. For example, this issue included features on flirting and using the habits of children to try new things. There is however a feature on the charity events that can help you get fit.

As with all the magazines, that are linked to a club, there’s a lot of advertising focussed on Slimming World products and clubs, although it’s not quite as heavy as in some of the other titles.

Who it will suit

Anyone who is already a member of Slimming World Club or simply wants a hit of inspiration about how other slimmers have achieved their goals.

Value for money

• Slimming – unless you already belong to the club you’ll have no idea how to make the recipes or food information work for you 0/10
• Content – the success stories are really inspiring and motivating but there’s not much else in this magazine 3/10