Word: nidetch
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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...
Founder of Weight Watchers Inc. is Jean Nidetch, 43, a New York City housewife who in 1963 weighed 214 lbs., but still found herself cheating on her reducing diet. She invited six fat friends over to talk about it, came out of the gathering convinced that group therapy was the answer. She has since slimmed down to 142 lbs. (her husband Marty has gone from 265 lbs. to 196 lbs.), and she estimates that 500,000 members in 16 states have lost more than 10 million lbs. since she established Weight Watchers...
...group-therapy approach seems to work simply because it gives dieters a chance to air their problems and share their mutual unhappiness (people who are not fat are known as "civilians"). Says Jean Nidetch: "There's no such thing as a jolly fat person." Adds Jerry Pozner, a Long Island University junior who has reduced from 238 lbs. to 137 lbs.: "People eat because they're lonely. When you come to Weight Watchers, you're not lonely any more...