It is time for WeightWatchers to reclaim weight loss. “Over the years, [we’ve said] we’re a wellness company. The key is re-owning weight,” says chief executive Tara Comonte.
Appetite-suppressing drugs such as Wegovy and Mounjaro are helping to remove the stigma of shedding pounds after a shortlived cultural shift towards body positivity. But the diet company whose approach has historically focused on food diaries and group meetings in church halls and community centres, is having to retool, and fast.
Comonte says the so-called GLP-1 drugs are a boon rather than “competition” for WeightWatchers, and are at the centre of her plan to rebuild the company into a primarily digital subscription business that can survive the medical revolution.
She is keen to spread the message that WeightWatchers is back, after “a lot of noise” and “wildly inaccurate” headlines proclaimed the death of the company when it filed for US bankruptcy protection last spring. If there was one positive to take from the press interest, she says, it was that WeightWatchers is “a leading global brand that drives a very high level of interest”.
Comonte was appointed interim chief executive in September 2024, after WeightWatchers’ share price crashed 97 per cent in three years, and her role was made permanent last February. On a recent trip to London, the 52-year-old who grew up in Scotland and has lived in the US for 18 years, is personable and chatty, talking about family (she has three children and so does her long-term partner).
She acknowledges the company lost its way in recent years, as dieting became a dirty word during the body positivity movement, which encouraged people to be healthy at any size. WeightWatchers changed its name to WW in 2018, intending to evoke wellness, but instead stirred confusion.
Jean Nidetch, co-founder of the decades-old brand. Comonte says WeightWatchers is now entering the most exciting chapter in the company’s history © Alamy
It then suffered from a wave of new competition — first from online apps that made its in-person meetings look outdated and then from the sudden rise of drugs that upended the weight-loss market.
Comonte has steered WeightWatchers through the Chapter 11 process, modernising its brand, improving digital products and integrating GLP-1 drugs into its business. “It was very obvious what needed to be done [regarding] the balance sheet. This company had accumulated $1.6bn worth of debt [and its] free cash flow all went to interest on the debt . . . It was imperative to be able to free up capital for innovation.”
The question now is whether growth from its clinical arm can offset declines in the core dieting division, according to Nathan Feather, an analyst at Morgan Stanley.
About 12 per cent of Americans have used GLP-1 drugs for weight loss, according to research group Rand, and Comonte insists the company is now in a position for rising demand to drive — not threaten — its growth. In 2023, it bought Sequence, a telehealth business it has renamed WeightWatchers Clinic, which can prescribe drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy, including the new pills, to members in the US.
Revenues from the clinical subscription business, which provides the drugs, were 35 per cent higher in the three months to September 2025 than the same period the year before. That compares favourably with group sales, which declined by almost 11 per cent to $172mn — but only represents about 15 per cent of total revenues. At the end of the third quarter, WeightWatchers had 124,000 clinical subscribers — 60 per cent more than a year earlier. But the number of members on behavioural subscriptions dropped by 20 per cent to 2.9mn.
“[The clinical business] is still a relatively small proportion of our membership today, but it’s a fast-growing part of the business. I expect more and more people to be on these medications over time . . . [particularly as the] price comes down.”
Interest in the drugs programme is clearly high. More than 1,000 people logged on to a recent online “GLP-1 Curious” session even though “we did no marketing”, says Comonte. It is a big shift for the company that in 2024 parted ways with its brand ambassador and shareholder Oprah Winfrey after she credited her smaller size to jabs.
The risk is that by going down the GLP-1 route, WeightWatchers becomes just another provider, losing its community spirit and focus on its core behavioural business.
For WeightWatchers to sell itself as supporting weight-loss drugs through lifestyle changes, it needs to work on its messaging, says Neil Saunders, managing director of retail at consultancy Global Data, so the consumer sees it as “more than . . . just weight loss — it doesn’t yet fully occupy that ground”.
Comonte hopes to encourage members who sign up to take drugs to also participate in a programme that advises on managing side effects, diet and exercise. A three-month trial by the company found those taking medication lost 54 per cent more weight if they also did its behavioural programme, compared with those who just took drugs.
The chief executive, who is slender, sees herself as the “perfect example of someone who wants to maintain my weight”. Like many members, she is using the WeightWatchers programme to restrict her calorie intake after the Christmas festivities. “It’s a particularly busy time.”
She hopes to launch an AI body scanner so users can monitor and maintain muscle mass while losing weight, and says coaches at the company have experience of being on weight-loss drugs so members can access “people who have walked in your shoes”.
Unlike online pharmacies, which “really just write your prescription and wish you luck . . . we support you the whole way through that journey”.
Sticking to the programme to maintain weight after achieving the goal may help people who are fearful of piling the pounds back on. This could allay dieters’ anxiety after recent clinical research on weight-loss drugs found that users returned to their original weight within two years of stopping.
Beth McGroarty at the non-profit Global Wellness Institute says: “The weight-loss drug market is just so crowded and complex, constantly changing with new regulations . . . If they can pull it all together in a meaningful, deep programme, it seems like a new model that could work.”
Covid-19 forced the closure of many weight-loss meetings, which frustrated WeightWatchers members who enjoyed the conviviality and support of their peers. Some countries, including France, now only offer virtual sessions. Comonte insists in-person meetings will continue. “We’ve got 60-plus years of being in the behavioural business.” But digital meetings will continue to grow, including some tailored to dieters at different life stages, such as the recent launch of a programme for menopausal women with rapper Queen Latifah as brand ambassador. “The proportion of virtual to real life will definitely increase because that’s what people are looking for.”
The American rapper Queen Latifah has been signed up as a brand ambassador for the company’s new programme for menopausal women
With the toughest part of the financial restructuring behind her, Comonte reflects on the challenge of being unable to publicly counter premature reports of the company’s demise. “It can be really scary to read headlines.”
To buoy morale internally, she says she briefed employees regularly. “I gave a lot of context . . . I did it often and I didn’t ever do it scripted. I did it live, I took a lot of Q&As. If we locked ourselves in a room and put our heads down and hoped for [the best], not only would that have been naive, it would have been pretty selfish.”
The child of a doctor, Comonte “saw first-hand how much [my mother’s] patients trusted and valued her. She was loving but also strong and decisive, and because of that I never really questioned women in leadership. Losing my mother relatively young reinforced for me that you rarely know what someone else is carrying, and how important it is to lead with empathy.” Her father, a businessman turned Conservative MP, taught her the importance of “preparation and care”.
Her job at WeightWatchers has similarities to her stint as chief financial officer at Shake Shack, the fast-food chain, which taught her “the power of a strong culture, particularly when a company is going through significant change”.
Attempts by previous WeightWatchers chief executives to reinvigorate the business have had little effect. What makes this time different? “WeightWatchers has been around for more than six decades,” she says. “This is an iconic global brand . . . it, of course, has evolved and [been] reinvented. This is the most exciting chapter in WeightWatchers’ history, and that is not just because I happen to be part of it.”
A day in the life
My days start and end with family, even though mornings move quickly. I’m up early, checking my calendar and what is happening in the news, then doing quick check-ins with my kids as everyone heads out. My eldest son is studying in Spain, so mornings are often the best time to FaceTime with him.
Most days are built around a fairly heavy meeting schedule. It is easy for organisations to fall into meetings for their own sake, so I try to be deliberate about how our time is used. Meetings should exist to make decisions and move work forward, not to exchange updates.
Outside of the colder months in New York, I’ll try to shift one-to-one meetings to phone calls and walk while we talk. It’s a good way to think more clearly and stay connected without adding anything extra to my day.
I spend a lot of time making sure our team have clarity and transparency on our most important priorities, particularly around product and marketing. As a public company, that includes time with investors.
Evenings vary. Some are spent at company events, but when I’m home, dinner is important family time. I’m fortunate that my partner is an excellent cook and keeps us well fed.