Word: nidetch
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...late 1961 Mrs. Jean Nidetch, then a compulsive eater and an equally nonstop talker, decided to use one of her characteristics to combat the other. She began holding meetings with overweight neighbors, during which they encouraged each other to stick to diets. As the 48-year-old Mrs. Nidetch never tires of relating, that was the start of a new life that has transformed her from a 214-lb. Queens, N.Y., housewife into a trim 142-lb. career woman. It also was the beginning of a multinational business, Weight Watchers International, that is gaining financial weight as rapidly...
...these activities in 1971 brought Weight Watchers International revenues of $10 million and profits of $1.5 million. The company's stock, issued at $11.25 a share in 1968, after a two-for-one split is now $18 in the over-the-counter market. One result: Founder and President Nidetch, who started out with a $1.56 checking account, now owns Weight Watchers stock worth almost...
...more remarkable because it is based so largely on talk. The company's high-protein diet for years was essentially the same one that anybody could get free from a New York City Health department obesity clinic merely by walking in and asking for it - as Mrs. Nidetch herself did in the beginning. Relying on frozen dinners to lose weight is an old bit of dieters' advice, and Weight Watchers dinners are a bit more expensive (990 to $1.65) than those of regular food processors, but the company claims that its dinners have larger portions with lower calorie...