Why Does Jenny Craig work?

Weight and physical appearance today have increasingly become the US public’s addiction. In today’s society, mass media’s influence on the public conscious is substantial. The ability to spread messages rapidly and widely creates the avenue to affect mass psychology. Thus in today’s society, mass media has dictated the overall cultural definition of beauty and health. As a result, mass media strengthens their hold on the US psyche by generating constant reminders and stories about such topics like health and thus generating fear. In this case, mass media has created such a widespread fear of the growing obesity epidemic that they have chiseled out a new market. In 2002, the commercial weight-loss market constituted about $100 billion dollars according to the Federal Trade Commission. This is an incredible amount of money committed to losing weight. As Dr. Campisi taught in physiology, his basic conclusion about weight-loss reverts to the common idea that this occurs most effectively through “diet and exercise”. Much of this market, however, constitutes advertisements about the “quick-fixes” and new super foods, which will allow you to rapidly attain your weight-loss goals without consequences. In reality as we have been taught, these promises are generally false. But the weight loss market is not a complete rip-off. As an individual with inclined interest towards the science behind the health and nutrition field, I offer Jenny Craig as an example of how why weight-loss is far more than weight-loss goal attainment but in reality a program geared towards nutritional education and promoting self-efficacy of healthy long-term behavior. A study published by Brenda Wolfe reveals that the long-term behavior augmentation towards weight is achieved through long-term practice. She notes that 82% of patients who successfully completed the Jenny Craig program remained within 10% of their weight goal. However, she does account for self-report bias, which diminishes her reported statistics to 64%. In rescuing her argument, she does go onto to cite a different study, which calculates weight regain after different length programs (20-week program 50% regained previous weight vs. 40-week program 33% regained weight). The results suggest that the longer the weight-loss program the more likely the weight-goal was maintained. Thus, although many weight-loss programs promote rapid and successful weight-loss, it is the weight maintenance over the long term that represent of a successful program. Unfortunately today, mass media often works to the detriment of society; those looking for the quick-fix for weight loss often spend more money in the long-term on other products and programs finding limited success because they fail to identify the key to success. Healthy weight-maintenance behavior trumps immediate weight-loss.

Brenda L. Wolfe, Long-term maintenance following attainment of goal weight: A preliminary investigation, Addictive Behaviors, Volume 17, Issue 5, September-October 1992, Pages 469-477, ISSN 0306-4603, 10.1016/0306-4603(92)90007-I.

(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/030646039290007I)

Cleland RL, Gross WC, Koss LD, Daynard M, Muoio KM. Weight loss advertising: an analysis of current trends. FTC staff report. Washington DC: Federal Trade Commission, September 2002..