On the way home from church recently, I asked Carol a question out loud that should have occurred to me much earlier.
“I wonder what has happened to Weight Watchers since the arrival of GLP-1 drugs?”
I looked.
WW International, Inc. (WW, and formerly Weight Watchers) has been helping people lose weight for more than 60 years. Its name is nearly synonymous with organized weight loss. Millions of people have counted points, attended meetings, weighed in, encouraged one another, and occasionally looked upon a piece of cheesecake as if it were contraband.
Then came Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, Zepbound, and the rapidly expanding family of GLP-1 medications.
These drugs did not merely introduce another competing diet. They changed the nature of weight loss. For many people, they reduced the hunger, cravings, and “food noise” that made traditional diets so difficult to sustain.
That development presented Weight Watchers with something considerably more serious than a new competitor. It threatened the underlying assumptions of its business.
A Decline Already Underway
It would be too simple to blame all of Weight Watchers’ problems on GLP-1s.
The company had been struggling for years. The pandemic severely damaged its in-person workshop business. Consumer attitudes toward dieting were changing. Free apps, social media, fitness platforms, and competing programs gave consumers more choices. WW also carried an enormous debt burden.
Annual revenue declined from approximately $1.5 billion in 2018 to $786 million in 2024. The company’s market capitalization, which reportedly exceeded $7 billion in 2018, fell to a tiny fraction of that amount. As of late August 2026, the market capitalization of the reorganized company was approximately $162 million.
GLP-1s did not create every problem. But they accelerated the decline and removed whatever room for complacency remained.
Weight Watchers could criticize the drugs and defend its traditional program. Or it could accept that the market had changed and find a place in the new one.
It chose the latter.
If You Cannot Beat Them…
In 2023, WW acquired Sequence, a telehealth company, for about $106 million. Sequence became Weight Watchers Clinic and gave members access to clinicians who could prescribe weight-loss medications when appropriate.
The move was not subtle. Weight Watchers was no longer merely competing with GLP-1s. It was going to help provide them.
The company now offers three broad levels of service:
- Core, built around the familiar Points program;
- Core+, adding workshops, coaching, and support for people taking GLP-1 medications obtained elsewhere; and
- Med+, combining behavioral support with clinical care and access to prescriptions for qualified members.
So, the Points program has not disappeared. It has become one component of a broader weight-health platform.
Management’s argument is logical. Medication may help people lose weight, but it does not automatically teach them how to eat well, preserve muscle, exercise, or maintain weight over a lifetime. People taking GLP-1s can still benefit from nutrition, accountability, coaching, and community.
In other words, the drugs may reduce the need for traditional dieting while increasing the need for a different kind of support.
Does Hims & Hers Point the Way?
Hims & Hers Health (HIMS) may offer a glimpse of what WW hopes to become.
Hims began as a consumer-oriented telehealth company addressing health conditions that people might hesitate to discuss in a doctor’s office. It created an accessible digital platform, developed recurring relationships with customers, and gradually expanded into additional areas of health and wellness.
Weight management, including GLP-1 medications, became an important part of that platform. Hims reported 2025 revenue of approximately $2.35 billion, up 59%, with more than 2.5 million subscribers. Its weight-loss business alone was expected to generate hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue.
Hims has encountered its own regulatory, competitive, and profitability problems, particularly regarding compounded versions of branded GLP-1 medications. It is hardly a risk-free model. Nevertheless, it demonstrates that consumers will use a digital platform combining clinical access, medication, continuing support, and personalized health services.
WW brings something Hims had to build: a nationally recognized weight-loss brand and six decades of behavioral experience. Hims brings something WW has struggled to create: technological momentum and a broader consumer-health identity.
WW’s opportunity may not be to rebuild the old Weight Watchers. It may be to become a specialized consumer-health platform for weight management—before Hims and others occupy all the available ground.
The Financial Restructuring
The strategic transformation could not solve WW’s accumulated financial burden by itself.
In May 2025, the company entered a prepackaged Chapter 11 proceeding. It emerged approximately seven weeks later after eliminating about $1.15 billion of debt and reducing annual interest expense by roughly $50 million. Lenders and noteholders received 91% of the reorganized company; existing shareholders retained only 9%.
The reorganization saved the operating company. It was considerably less generous to its former shareholders.
Bankruptcy does not cure a weak business. It buys time and removes debt. Management must still build something customers want.
What Do the Numbers Say?
The results so far are mixed.
Total quarterly revenue declined from $206.5 million in the first quarter of 2024 to $162.3 million in the second quarter of 2026. The traditional behavioral business continues to lose subscribers and revenue.
The clinical business, however, is growing rapidly. At June 2026, WW had approximately 197,000 clinical subscribers, up nearly 56% from the prior year. Clinical subscription revenue grew about 30% in the quarter. Its higher-value Core+ behavioral tier also grew, even as total subscribers declined.
For 2026, management forecasts revenue of $620 million to $635 million and Adjusted EBITDA of $105 million to $115 million.
A word of caution is warranted regarding that last measure.
WW defines EBITDA to add back not only interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, but also share-based compensation. It then makes further adjustments to arrive at Adjusted EBITDA. Stock-based compensation—including restricted shares, options, or stock appreciation rights—is not costless simply because cash may not leave the company when the expense is recorded. It transfers value to employees and executives through dilution or creates a future cash obligation.
Shareholders pay either way.
The amount is not WW’s largest adjustment, but the presentation illustrates why adjusted earnings should always be examined rather than merely accepted. Adjusted EBITDA can be useful. It can also become a financial version of removing every ingredient from the soup that management finds inconvenient.
The larger point remains: this is not yet a growth story. It is a shrinking company attempting to replace declining legacy revenue with newer, higher-value services while protecting profitability.
Effects Far Beyond Weight Watchers
Weight Watchers is an obvious example of GLP-1 disruption. The less obvious examples may ultimately be more revealing.
If millions of people eat less and become more attentive to their weight and health, the effects will travel far beyond pharmaceutical companies and diet programs. Restaurants, grocery stores, food manufacturers, apparel companies, fitness providers, bariatric surgeons, sleep-apnea businesses, and many others may be affected.
Researchers and corporate executives are beginning to examine these second-order effects, but it is still too early to separate the impact of GLP-1s from inflation, changing consumer preferences, demographic trends, and other influences.
Some businesses will lose revenue. Others will discover new markets. Many may experience both.
Weight Watchers offers an early and unusually visible example because the connection is direct and its public disclosures allow us to watch the transformation unfold.
The Larger Lesson
Weight Watchers had one of the most recognizable brands in weight loss. Yet the market changed quickly enough to help push it into bankruptcy.
The company survived by accepting the new reality, reducing its debt, and attempting to build around the force that disrupted it. It is now trying to combine medication, behavioral science, nutrition, technology, and human support into a single offering.
Whether that effort ultimately succeeds remains to be seen.
But WW has recognized something important: GLP-1 medications may change how people lose weight, but they do not eliminate the need to learn how to live well and to age gratefully.
If Weight Watchers can help people do all three, its next chapter may be more interesting than its last.
As always, be well, and age gratefully,
Chris
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