Success story

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-04-2004
Success story
30
Sat, 08-07-2004 - 7:53pm
I came across this website of a woman who lost over 90 lbs doing WW. Go through all the pages. Her weight loss is very inspiring and she has some good advice to share.

http://www.freewebs.com/dimpledn/

~~Linda

~~Linda

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-04-2004
In reply to: linda112491
Mon, 08-16-2004 - 12:50pm
Since you didn't open the link, I will enlighten you as to its contents. This was not a website that was endorsed by WW, but rather this person's personal website tracking her weight loss journey. She just happened to follow WW to lose the weight.

I posted this link because I thought that it was very inspiring. I don't follow WW, and I don't plan to. However, I find success stories to be very inspirational and uplifting, regardless of how the weight was lost. This woman has a lot of good advice on her website, advice that has nothing to do with the WW program. I enjoyed visiting her site, and I thought that others would as well, since we all have common weight loss goals.

~~Linda

~~Linda

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-17-2004
In reply to: linda112491
Mon, 08-16-2004 - 12:56pm
And my point

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Fear

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-17-2004
In reply to: linda112491
Mon, 08-16-2004 - 12:57pm
She certainly did.

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Fear

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-16-2004
In reply to: linda112491
Mon, 08-16-2004 - 12:59pm
Linda,

To put my two cents here: I did open the website, and I think it's an ad just like all the other ads which WW plants across the web. You see these things all over, and I think they are just paid advertisements for a particular program. And they are often disguised as "individual" websites. For crying out loud, WW just advertises itself this way and has for a long time. It's probably a way to get "under the wire" (so to speak) on boards like this one, which don't allow advertisements for other businesses to be spammed here.

WW has done this for eons. Someone posts a "did you see these success story pictures" on websites where advertisements for other businesses aren't permitted. It's a way for WW to advertise itself, for free, to a lot of women. And when you multiply that by the number of times this "website" of a lady's "success pictures" are printed....well then, a big company like WW has really cheated and gotten itself a lot of free advertising, without getting pulled as "spam." But "spam" by any other name, is still "spam."

I just wonder how much money that woman got paid by WW for putting her photos on display across the internet? Or how much people get paid (if they do) to post the links to her "website" on boards all over the place? One thing though, it's a business. But it may save WW money to engage in this sort of self-advertisement....I'm not so sure it speaks to the integrity of their business practices though. Who knows!

It is rather transparent, though.

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-16-2004
In reply to: linda112491
Mon, 08-16-2004 - 1:08pm
Of course, you're right. But I don't think that person was "really and truly" saying WW should post failure stories. What the poster was saying, is that you can really tell these things are nothing more than protracted business advertisements. That's an entirely different bird than if someone, out of the blue, is just telling her own story for the heck of it. The poster is saying I believe (or at least I'm saying) these things are only internet advertisements, and you see them all over the place. And it's just a kind of littering the internet, I think, because some website is set up which pretends to be "one woman's story" when in fact it's just a paid advertisement by WW. And then people pick it up (or are paid to, I don't know which, maybe both) and plaster them on websites message boards like this one here. And it's a way for WW to get away with advertising without paying for it. I don't know if the poster you wrote to saw that whole picture, but I do and it's fairly common. It's really no more than all those "doctored pictures" you can see in cheap tabloids or whatever. And when you come to think of it, who is to say this "woman" (if one exists) lost any weight on anything. It's pretty darn easy to just take a photo, use photoshop or whatever, and doctor it down to whatever "measurements" you want to.....in order to sell a product.

All that said, I'm really out of words on this one. I just saw this, and knowing how advertising works wanted to weigh in with my two cents worth. It's really not that interesting, or "inspiring" when you come to think of it. It's just WW trying to make a buck.

I think that's all I have to say on this score. As I said, it's really not that hard to figure out.

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-04-2004
In reply to: linda112491
Mon, 08-16-2004 - 1:08pm
You're welcome.

~~Linda

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-04-2004
In reply to: linda112491
Mon, 08-16-2004 - 1:11pm
I'm sorry you feel that way. I found it inspirational, and I thought others would as well. Who knew that posting a success story on a weight loss board could become so controversial?

~~Linda

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-17-2004
In reply to: linda112491
Mon, 08-16-2004 - 1:16pm

I appreciate your two cents, and hope that you can appreciate mine.


I totally understand what you are saying, I really do, but if advertising something that inspirational is making someone else feel better, then there is no harm in it.

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Fear

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-16-2004
In reply to: linda112491
Mon, 08-16-2004 - 1:19pm
I think advertisements for weight loss products/services CAN be inspirational to some, otherwise why would advertisers use them to sell their products/services. But it's all in understanding that what you are reading may-or-may-not be true....but that it is what it is....an attempt to sell goods or services to the public. That's what advertising does, after all. And this is one of the ways WW often advertises. It's just a matter of knowing what you're seeing.

I don't think it's "contraversial" as you say. It just is, what it is. If the woman actually lost weight, then good for her. But we can't always believe everything we see or read. And one thing is pretty certain: somebody is making money by these kinds of "success stories" for WW plastered on the internet. If it weren't profitable, it wouldn't be one of the ways WW advertises itself to potential "customers."

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-08-2003
In reply to: linda112491
Mon, 08-16-2004 - 1:20pm
I think people must be getting bored w/summer, because lately every post is becoming a controversy!

Crazy, but it seems so. Oh well, Fall will be here.......someday!

Ha!

Dawn