Jean Nidetch*

In 1923, Jean Nidetch was born into a loving Brooklyn family of modest means. Her father was a cab driver who sold sandwiches and coffee to work gangs to earn extra money during the Great Depression. Her mother helped out by making the sandwiches and working as a manicurist.

In school, Nidetch was a popular leader of her own circle of friends, all of whom shared her problem of excess weight. "I had loads of fat friends," she said, "but I never really talked much to thin people. We all felt thin people were different because it seemed they could eat anything they wanted and not gain weight."

After high school, Nidetch worked in a variety of jobs until marrying at age 24. Her husband, a bus driver, was also overweight. While raising two sons, she helped support the family by selling eggs door to door for her aunt, who owned a chicken farm in nearby New Jersey.

As a young adult, Nidetch made many attempts to control her expanding waistline. All were futile. Finally, she enrolled in a weight program sponsored by the New York City Board of Health. She was given a diet to follow, which she did for 10 weeks. By then, she had lost 20 pounds, but her motivation was beginning to wane. She felt she needed support from friends. Nidetch began to hold weekly meetings with her overweight friends in her apartment. She gave them copies of the diet she was following, and they freely talked about their triumphs and weaknesses concerning food control. "I realized that what I needed was someone to talk to who could give me some feedback," she said. "And if I needed it, others needed it just as much."

At a time when support groups were non-existent and the self-help movement was unknown, Nidetch's idea struck a nerve. Word spread about the meetings, and the initial group grew rapidly. Within three months, 40 people were squeezing into her modest apartment for a weekly opportunity to talk honestly about their weight problems. Over the next year, she agreed to lead similar groups throughout the New York metropolitan area. In 1963, she incorporated and rented a loft in Queens to hold the first public Weight Watchers meeting. She was shocked when 400 people arrived that morning.

By the time Weight Watchers went public in 1968, it had 102 franchises worldwide. In 1978, after 15 years of phenomenal growth, Weight Watchers was sold to H. J. Heinz Co. After the sale, Nidetch continued to serve as a consultant to Weight Watchers International and traveled around the world to attend anniversary celebrations and staff meetings.

An advocate of higher education, Nidetch established a scholarship at the University of California at Los Angeles for women studying political science. "I don't think I'll make it as president of the United States, but some woman can and will," she once said. "I'd like to be instrumental in that."