What makes jean nidetch an expert

It was a secret look. Nobody in that group got sick looking at food. Endeavouring to stick to her diet, Nidetch invited six overweight friends to her home, where they formed an impromptu support network whose ranks steadily grew.

The members bought a scale for weigh-ins. Nidetch developed a rewards system including prizes for weight-loss milestones. In October , Nidetch reached her target weight of 10st 2lb. News travelled about her skill as a motivator. Two dieters at one session, a garment executive named Albert Lippert and his wife, Felice, encouraged her to form a business.

Together, the Lipperts and the Nidetches founded Weight Watchers, an operation that became an empire with trademarked packaged foods, best-selling cookbooks, summer camps for children, franchises and millions of followers around the world. Regular member meetings remained a hallmark of the programme, which has been compared to Alcoholics Anonymous. She was put on a strict diet developed by a doctor that allowed for no changes or substitutions: liver once a week and fish five times a week, two pieces of bread and two glasses of milk per day.

There was no room for sweets or alcohol, and failure to stick with the plan would result in expulsion. Each week, Jean was required to weigh in and after one year of hard work, she finally reached her goal weight of pounds. Jean celebrated her 72 pound weight loss with a complete makeover, she dyed her hair blonde and bought a new wardrobe chock full of sleek Jacqueline Kennedy- like shift dresses and fitted suits; it was the halcyon days of Camelot after all.

It wasn't long after she started going to the obesity clinic that Jean began inviting friends over once a week to share her dieting tips from the program.

It was the informal beginning of Weight Watchers and suddenly the group grew from six women to ten and then forty within two months. They poured out of her living room and into her foyer before they had to move into the basement of her apartment complex in Queens. Marisa Meltzer poses with Busy Philipps.

As a journalist who covers beauty, wellness, fashion and celebrity, Marisa said that she feels like she 'lives in a world of thin people. Marisa poses with her beloved bulldog, Joan. She recalled a time when two teenager girls doted over Joan's chubby physique. She said, 'We all just accept dogs for showing up. I wish I could do that for myself'. She was just a fat housewife who got thin and wanted to talk about it,' wrote Marisa; but regardless Jean was a natural in the spotlight, and she commanded her audience with a mix of humor and inspiring speech: 'Chances are you won't lose anything by giving up a slice of cake.

But what you win is a big victory, and that can be the beginning of winning the war. Never one for modesty, Jean recalled those first meetings generously: 'It's as if, having never had a lesson, I sat down to a piano and played a concerto. She expected her newfound followers to keep up with the same strict standards she maintained herself: 'If you leave here to have coffee and melon, coffee and fresh fruit cup…I wish you well.

But if you're leaving here to have coffee and a Danish, I affectionately wish you heartburn. By , Jean had taken her show on the road where she met Felice and Albert Lippert, an overweight couple that she helped lose weight.

In May, , the Lipperts and Nidetchs, formed a corporation together and called it Weight Watchers International, people attended the first official meeting that same month. Business boomed and by , there were classes per week in New York City alone. Hundreds of franchises were open around the world totaling 1. Albert Lippert ran the business while Jean was the face of the company.

Jean loved the spotlight and Meltzer said, she 'possessed of an almost mythical relatability among her followers'. Jean Nidetch poses alongside a former photo of herself from her heavier days. Jean always wore high heels, a perfect coif and freshly done manicure and pedicure. She told her staff that they were also to look like impeccable 'after' photos to emphasize the part of someone who had dramatically changed. Weight Watchers had developed into a cottage industry, with a restaurant on Madison Avenue, a cookbook, a monthly magazine, weight loss camps and a frozen food line.

With her money, Jean bought her entire Queens apartment building and staffed it with maids. She displayed her flamboyant taste for fashion with vibrant prints, feather trimmed sleeves, turbans, over-sized sunglasses, and trapeze coats. A photo in the May issue of Look Magazine depicts Jean wearing an Emilio Pucci printed dress, standing 'with her arms spread wide in almost messianic pose' among her devotees. Oh, I'm Marilyn Monroe, I thought. I am a star. I remember being filled with ego,' said Jean.

I watched my compact fall, then my mirror, my wallet. And I thought—God just told me who I am. I am not Marilyn Monroe. I am a lady who got thin and now I have to tell the world about it. Jean took the stage for two hours and told her favorite joke: 'I nearly drowned off a cruise ship off of Casablanca, it was hit by a tidal wave. Now that's appetite. Jean and Marty divorced after years of marriage in and Jean moved to the ritzy Los Angeles neighborhood of Brentwood, where she made bed fellows with the actors Glenn Ford and Fred Astaire.

Weight Watchers went public in , turning its founders into multimillionaires, and in the company was sold to the H. Jean was reduced to a consulting role and by the time she reached her 80s, she had burned through most of her money. Weight Watchers turned into a massive cottage industry with a restaurant, frozen food line, cookbook and magazine. Above, Jean demonstrates a few of the new low calorie products. Meltzer said Jean was a pioneer in the wellness and lifestyle industries, paving the way for future entrepreneurs like Martha Stewart, Ina Garten and Gwyneth Paltrow.

For example, she developed a reward system whereby program participants would earn a gold pin for losing ten pounds and then add a diamond chip for each ten pounds after that. To help cover the costs, members started to pay 25 cents a week to attend meetings. By October Nidetch had reached her personal goal of losing 72 pounds.

She never gained the weight back. From that point on she began to refer to herself proudly as a "formerly fat child" or a "formerly fat housewife. By following the same diet and attending meetings, Marty Nidetch also lost 70 pounds and Nidetch's mother lost Among her many clients, Nidetch met Felice and Al Lippert and had helped them and their friends successfully through the weight loss program. Al Lippert was a successful businessman in the clothing industry. He soon convinced Nidetch to turn her program into a business.

On May 15, , with Lippert's financial backing and expertise, Weight Watchers was born. Nidetch and Lippert rented an old movie theater to hold meetings and began to charge a modest fee of two dollars a week to cover expenses, the same price as a movie. As the program grew, Nidetch and Lippert hired ex-participants as lecturers and opened offices in other locations in New York.

They carefully selected lecturers who still remembered what it was like to be overweight and could sympathize with and support program participants. Eventually the business became a partnership between the Nidetches and the Lipperts. Jean focused more on lecturing and let the others handle more of the business decisions. In February Al Lippert decided to work for Weight Watchers full time and helped it grow into an international organization.

Lippert oversaw the sales of branded products, such as cookbooks, videotapes, and low fat foods, as well as a syndicated television program called Weight Watchers Forum. In September Weight Watchers became a publicly held corporation with 81 franchises in 43 states and 10 overseas locations.

Nidetch moved to Brentwood, California, but still traveled extensively to support the new company. She also wrote a monthly column for Weight Watchers Magazine that was syndicated to over newspapers worldwide. In she also published her autobiography, The Story of Weight Watchers. When Weight Watchers celebrated its tenth anniversary in , Nidetch decided to step down as company president. However, she continued to work as a consultant. Heinz Company. Nidetch received over seven million for her share of the company.

Jean Nidetch had the timing and gravel voice of a standup comic, plus the psychological perception and charisma of a great preacher. She put those gifts to good use in , as a housewife in her 30s weighing 97kg 15st 4lb , after a neighbour asked, genuinely, how soon the baby was due. Nidetch faced the mirror, and the shock released her other self, Jean the Lean, who set up Weight Watchers, the founding church of slimming.

Nidetch, who has died aged 91, lost the weight, and never again exceeded 64kg. She tried fad diets, prescription amphetamines, even hypnosis, but none dented her flesh.