Faced with competition from new weight-loss methods, WeightWatchers announced Tuesday that it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy to eliminate $1.15 billion in debt.
The 62-year-old health and wellness company said the move won't impact its more than 3 million members worldwide as it undergoes a financial reorganization to expand its telehealth business.
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The company's earnings report Tuesday showed a 10% decline in first-quarter revenue compared with a year ago. Meanwhile, its telehealth business — which began offering access to weight-loss medications like Ozempic and Wegovy through a 2023 acquisition of the platform Sequence — jumped 57% year-over-year, the statement said. WeightWatchers expects to emerge from the bankruptcy process in about 40 days.
"For more than 62 years, WeightWatchers has empowered millions of members to make informed, healthy choices, staying resilient as trends have come and gone," WeightWatchers CEO Tara Comonte said in a statement. "The decisive actions we're taking today … will give us the flexibility to accelerate innovation, reinvest in our members, and lead with authority in a rapidly evolving weight management landscape."
WeightWatchers has undergone major changes in the past, including a rebranding in 2018 to change its name to WW and shift its focus to healthy living over weight loss. In conjunction with its telehealth push, the company has drastically cut back on its in-person meetings. While there were 3,300 in-person workshops in the United States before the pandemic, those dropped to about 1,000 as of January 2024, the New York Times reports.
In 2023, WW lost its most prominent spokesperson when Oprah Winfrey left the board of directors after revealing she used weight-loss medication.
The company was founded in 1963 in New York City, and a year later the first WeightWatchers franchise was established by Marilyn Birnhak in Philadelphia. While in-person meetings have dwindled, WW still has six workshop locations in Philly, according to its website.