Atkins weight loss products are seen on sale at a Kroger supermarket, Friday, April 12, 2024, in Marietta, Ga. – Ever since college, Brad Jobling struggled with his weight, fluctuating between a low of 155 pounds when he was in his 30s to as high as 220. He spent a decade tracking calories on WeightWatchers, but the pounds he dropped always crept back onto his 5-foot-5-inch frame..
“The weight loss space will be led by the acknowledgement that weight loss is a matter of health care,” WeightWatchers CEO Sima Sistani told analysts earlier this year. “This is a paradigm shift because weight loss has been and, unfortunately, often still is viewed as a vanity issue.” Luxury athletic club operator Life Time launched a membership program last year that offers comprehensive medical testing, personalized training and a host of alternative therapies like cryotherapy. Members of the Miora program also can get Ozempic and other weight loss drugs through the medical staff of a clinic that opened in Minneapolis last year.
Fitness chains are banking on the idea people on the drugs will lose enough weight to overcome any self-consciousness or physical limits that kept them from exercising. The gym franchise Equinox started a new personal training program in January for prescription-holders who want to preserve or build muscle mass as they shed unwanted pounds.
“Diets are cool again,” Nestle SA CEO Ulf Mark Schneider told analysts in February."It’s something that people used to do quietly on the side, uncertain about their outcomes.”has shown that about a third of people lose 5% or more of their body weight with diet and exercise alone, according to Dr. Louis Aronne, director of the Comprehensive Weight Control Center at Weill Cornell Medical school.