--- title: Oprah Buys In: How Weight Watchers Became So Successful description: It was announced on Monday that Oprah Winfrey is taking a 10% stake in Weight Watchers and joining the company's board. canonical: https://time.com/4078087/weight-watchers-oprah/ author: Alexandra Sifferlin article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-10-19T15:41:47.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T11:53:49.311Z article:section: History og:title: Oprah Buys In: How Weight Watchers Became So Successful og:description: It was announced on Monday that Oprah Winfrey is taking a 10% stake in Weight Watchers og:url: https://time.com/4078087/weight-watchers-oprah/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltedc184f5bd037691/698868d12dce015b5f9e6128/oprah.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Celebrities Visit Broadway - October 16, 2015 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Oprah Buys In: How Weight Watchers Became So Successful twitter:description: It was announced on Monday that Oprah Winfrey is taking a 10% stake in Weight Watchers twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltedc184f5bd037691/698868d12dce015b5f9e6128/oprah.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How Weight Watchers Got So Successful in the First Place by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Oct 19, 2015 3:41 PM UTC  Oprah Winfrey poses backstage at the hit musical "Hamilton" on Broadway at The Richard Rogers Theater in New York City, on Oct. 16, 2015. Oprah Winfrey poses backstage at the hit musical "Hamilton" on Broadway at The Richard Rogers Theater in New York City, on Oct. 16, 2015.Bruce Glikas—FilmMagic/Getty Images by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Oct 19, 2015 3:41 PM UTC Weight Watchers got a different kind of celebrity endorsement on Monday, when it was announced that Oprah Winfrey is taking a 10% stake in the company and joining its board. Winfrey will pay about $43 million for 6.4 million shares of the company. Shares of Weight Watchers jumped 83% after the news broke, [_The Wall Street Journal_ reports](http://www.wsj.com/articles/oprah-winfrey-taking-10-stake-in-weight-watchers-1445251920). How did the company reach this level of financial success? It goes back to the earliest days of Weight Watchers, the brainchild of Jean Nidetch, who in 1961 started hosting weekly meetings with other overweight friends at her home to talk about weight and dieting. The checking account balance with which she turned the idea into a business was a mere $1.56, TIME later [reported](http://time.com/vault/issue/1972-02-21/page/77/). Nidetch eventually went from 214 lbs. to 142\. And, though early participants only paid a few dollars to participate—$3 for initiation plus $2 a week, [in 1967—](http://time.com/vault/issue/1967-04-07/page/74/)Nidetch and fellow founders became millionaires when Weight Watchers went public in 1968, according to the [New York _Times_](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/30/business/jean-nidetch-dies-at-91-co-founder-of-weight-watchers-and-dynamic-speaker.html). Eventually Weight Watchers was sold to H.J. Heinz. Weight Watchers’ early success was remarkable because the specifics of the diet it promoted weren’t actually anything new, TIME [noted](http://time.com/vault/issue/1972-02-21/page/77/) in 1972\. What made the program special was that it was based so extensively on talking. Nidetch [who passed away in April](http://time.com/3840580/jean-nidetch-weight-watchers-founder-dies/) of this year, explained that, “Compulsive eating is an emotional problem, and we use an emotional approach to its solution.” Perhaps the best explanation for the power of Nidetch’s idea came from Jerry Pozner, a Long Island University junior who dropped from 238 lbs. to 137 lbs. and [once](http://time.com/vault/issue/1967-04-07/page/74/) told TIME that, “People eat because they’re lonely. When you come to Weight Watchers, you’re not lonely any more.” Nowadays, Weight Watchers is hoping to extend that history of success by reportedly expanding the company’s focus from weight loss to helping people live a healthier lifestyle in general, _WSJ_ reports. Weight Watchers is also trying to reach millennials, _WSJ_ adds, who prefer to eat healthy and exercise—often with the help of apps and gadgets—rather than following a specific weight-loss program. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4078087/weight-watchers-oprah/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4078087/weight-watchers-oprah/"},"headline":"How Weight Watchers Got So Successful in the First Place","datePublished":"2015-10-19T15:41:47.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T11:53:49.311Z","description":"Before Oprah Winfrey, there was Jean Nidetch","url":"https://time.com/4078087/weight-watchers-oprah/","keywords":["Oprah","Business topic","Weight loss","health","eating","Diet & Nutrition"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltedc184f5bd037691/698868d12dce015b5f9e6128/oprah.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alexandra Sifferlin","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltedc184f5bd037691/698868d12dce015b5f9e6128/oprah.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Celebrities Visit Broadway - October 16, 2015","caption":"Celebrities Visit Broadway - October 16, 2015","creditText":"Bruce Glikas—FilmMagic/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4078087/weight-watchers-oprah/","name":"How Weight Watchers Got So Successful in the First Place"}}]}] ```