Slimming World’s response to BBC Radio 4’s File on 4 documentary

We were shocked and saddened to hear the experiences of the two former Slimming World members featured on Tuesday’s BBC Radio 4’s File on 4. It’s extremely difficult to hear of any member who feels attending Slimming World hasn’t had a positive impact on their relationship with food and we wish them both all the best for their continued recoveries.

We were also disappointed and frustrated by some of the descriptions of our plan and our approach, which couldn’t be further from our founding principles and the care and support our 3,500 Consultants provide to our 700,000 members each week.

Slimming World is founded on understanding, care, compassion and absolutely no shame or judgement. Our groups, online programme, healthy eating plan and physical activity support programme are designed to encourage and empower members to make healthy changes, and never induce guilt – on the contrary, our focus has always been to lift the burden of guilt and shame that members feel around their weight, to raise their self-esteem, self-belief and self-confidence.

Slimming World has a dedicated training department who provide Consultants with expert training to support members to make lasting changes to their mindset and their health.They do this by helping members raise their own awareness to setbacks that could stand in their way, by providing strategies to overcome or avoid them, and to develop new habits and routines that will bring them closer to their goals.

Slimming World’s Food Optimising eating plan provides a flexible and practical way to lose weight while encouraging a balanced approach in line with current healthy eating guidelines. We have an in-house team of registered dietitians and nutritionists who ensure Food Optimising remains in line with latest guidance and evidence. As an organisation we also take advice from an expert panel specialising in health, nutrition, weight management and psychology.

The radio documentary focused heavily on Syns, those carefully controlled, high energy density foods that pose the biggest risk to a member’s success when they’re trying to lose weight. They gave little information on the generous list of healthy, filling and nutritious Free Foods which offer members the freedom and flexibility to tailor the plan to suit their dietary needs or preferences. We understand deeply how having a rigid, rule-ridden approach has a damaging effect when we’re losing weight – potentially bringing short-term results, but quickly becoming unsustainable and leading to feelings of deprivation, rebellion, guilt and failure when we inevitably can’t stick with it anymore. That’s why our eating plan is based on liberation and choice power, where no food is banned.

A number of worrying tactics for quick weight loss were also referenced within the programme. These tactics are absolutely not recommended, encouraged nor widespread within Slimming World groups and we strongly refute the implication that they are.  It was also clear from listening to the programme that the experts chosen to comment on Slimming World had limited knowledge on not only our policies but how we support members to lose weight and make lifelong healthy habits.

Slimming World is an evidence-based weight management programme with 55 years' experience and a substantial body of research and evidence demonstrating our effectiveness. It is prescribed as an option in some areas of the UK by the NHS to people who GPs, nurses and other healthcare professionals feel would benefit. We are also proud to support patients through the NHS Digital Weight Management Programme and through the Government’s Better Health initiative. We work with government and professional bodies, charities and organisations to help shape the future of weight management in the UK and Ireland. We’re specialists in weight management and given the reported cost of obesity to the NHS, the economy and crucially to people’s lives, we play an important role in helping people to lose weight and create healthy habits for life, having a positive impact on both their physical and mental health, and their family’s wellbeing too.

We’re not – nor have ever claimed to be – specialists in eating disorders and, therefore, have policies in place for both our groups and online programme to help ensure people who have an eating disorder get the tailored, expert help and support they need elsewhere. As part of our safeguarding process, we ask all new members to let us know if they have a current eating disorder or a history of an eating disorder. As with one of the former members in the programme, we understand that not everyone may feel able to share this with us, or in some cases, people might not be fully aware of the challenges they face around food when embarking on a weight loss journey. Without this information, we are limited in the help we can signpost people to in order for them to receive the best possible advice.

The health and wellbeing of our members has been and always will be our top priority. While we’re confident in the robustness of our policies and support systems, one member who hasn’t received the support or signposting that they should have is one too many. We will be revisiting the resources and training around our policies in this area to make sure it’s as clear and up to date as possible, and that our Consultants all feel completely confident in providing the best support possible to all members.

We’re committed to helping people live healthier and happier lives and take all the issues raised in this programme extremely seriously. We recognise the importance of supportive language in helping people to feel good about themselves and confident in their ability to make positive changes, and we’re in the process of reviewing some of our terminology.

We are also very keen to investigate the members’ experiences that were shared in the programme, as well as any experiences other people may have had during their Slimming World membership. We’d ask anyone who feels able to share their experience to contact us directly on customer.servicedept@slimmingworld.co.uk