Weight Watchers Magazine

Reviewed by WLR Dietitian, Juliette Kellow

Fact File - Weight Watchers Magazine

Issue reviewed:	June 2005
Pages:	132, 32% Advertising
Circulation:	243,010
Cover Price:	£2.50

Content

What you’d expect from a magazine aimed at helping people to lose weight: success stories and food, exercise, health, lifestyle, fashion and beauty features related to weight loss.

Overall view

Weight Watchers magazine is clearly aimed at people who are already members of Weight Watchers’ clubs. Two diet plans are included but there’s no explanation given about how they work or how many Points you should have each day – you obviously need to become a member to find this out first. Meanwhile, food features only give Points values and fail to include details about the calorie or fat content, again making them completely useless if you want to lose weight but aren’t a Weight Watchers member. Only the recipes give calorie information.

In Detail

The magazine is hugely biased towards selling or promoting the Weight Watchers brand, whether it’s food, the clubs, the online service or books. Meanwhile, a huge number of pages are dedicated to advertising and promotions, with the result that the magazine feels as though it contains little independent, unbiased information.

Furthermore, it’s a disappointing read and is badly put together. There are no obvious sections to help you navigate your way around the magazine and there’s little new or original information. I felt as though I’d read most of the features before – we’re talking bikini’s to suit your shape, how friends might be making you fat, boosting your love life to help you slim, women and heart disease and a fact file on fibre!

Features also lack structure, are often badly written and not thought through properly. For example, there’s a feature that explains more about osteoarthritis and sleep apnoea, with no obvious link between them, other than the fact they’re both related to being overweight! Meanwhile, many features lack expert opinion or facts and figures to back up statements. In fact, the magazine doesn’t appear to have any experts at all!

There’s also little attention paid to the real needs of slimmers. The fashion featured, for example, only goes up to a size 18 – not very practical or inspiring for bigger readers. And there was little to inspire older readers who wanted to lose weight – the four successful slimmers were aged 22, 23, 25 and 34!

Who it will suit

People who are already members of Weight Watchers and don’t mind paying more to learn about the Weight Watchers brand.

Value for money

Slimming – the information is fairly useless unless you’re already a Weight Watchers member 1/10
Overall content – you’re paying for a lot of adverts and very few new ideas 1/10