When you see a Weight Watchers commercial, you don’t generally think, “Hey, this is definitely targeted for me, a college student living off of midnight mozzarella sticks and milkshakes.” Certainly not with the old Weight Watchers. You know, pre-Oprah and Smart Points and the new millennial-targeted direction. And why would you? Weight Watchers has a longstanding reputation of attracting very overweight adults—real adults, with responsibilities that exceed essays and student loans—and, from my experience helping them lose weight only to gain it all back. And then some.

Meet, Smart Points--aka the devil dressed in a chic nonfunctioning app.

Smart Points—Weight Watcher’s newest points-based system—came to power on none other than what is one of the most fattening days of the year…Thanksgiving. Because what better way to help emotional eaters than taking them out of their working routine when they’re surrounded by pumpkin pie, apple pie, pecan pie and…marshmallow-topped sweet potatoes. (I’m getting distracted, so I’ll move on.)

Point is, if it ain’t broke, don’t “fix” it. Weight Watchers has a habit of this though, letting customers get used to one system and living by it, religiously. Because all it takes is a routine right? And the motivation to stick to said routine. But what happens if your routine is taken away from you, without warning? The thing about Smart Points is it’s not just recording things differently. It’s eating differently. What once was six points for 1/4 cup of M&M’s is now 11 points. Granted, the scale has now been adjusted from 26 points a day to 30 and everything is measured differently. Forget the fact that points used to be calculated solely by taking fiber, protein, fat and carbs into account.

Weight Watchers always prided itself on being the anti-calorie counting solution. Calories never factored into points, into the mindset. Now? Months of technical difficulties made it impossible to scan items, to even login to the app half the time, and scanned items no longer matched up with manual calculations. Because tracking is so easy when you have no idea what exactly you’re putting into your body.

Approachable? I think not.

Forget the fact that this would be difficult for any tracking system. Weight Watchers claims to be the approachable method to weight loss, for your average Joe. But how many of us can really relate to WW’s new celebrity endorser, Oprah? How many WW subscribers can lay claim to 3.2 billion dollars? How many of us have personal chefs and trainers on hand to cook us gourmet meals when we don’t have time for much more than Lunchables or keep track of our squats? Not many, I can tell you. Not many.

But sure, this is still the “approachable” track to weight loss.

Totally meant for twenty-somethings (if they earn $100K and don't go to school)

And if you’re in college? Yeah, spending two hours to make breakfast is very practical, as is avoiding carbs and refined sugar in your dining hall and still staying on budget. I once went to a WW meeting and, for a minute, was pretty sure I’d stepped into a cult. In the online forums, subscribers had done nothing but complain about the new points system, bemoaning the newfound guilt that followed each meal, the stress that accompanied tracking something as simple as a bowl of oatmeal. Nothing was safe, no meal acceptable. People left and right were falling victim to their old insecurities surrounding food. Me too.

I thought maybe it was because I was in school, I had a tight schedule, and an even tighter food budget. I couldn’t afford to spend twenty minutes searching for some satisfactory meal in the dining hall, something not gag-worthy or full of calories. I couldn’t afford to keep spending $20 on sushi from GrubHub because it was a little more nutritious.

Capitalism brainwashing

So I told this group leader about my struggle, about the struggles I’d read up on, after hearing 40-something-year-old after 40-something-year-old gush about how Smart Points is all they needed in their life. Smart Points is love, Smart Points is life. If you know what I mean. How was it possible that everyone had despised this development from the anonymity of their screens, but in person, they were afraid to speak up about something they were paying for.

In reality, I could go on and on about my disdain for the empire that is Weight Watchers, but the main issue is the pattern that nearly all subscribers find themselves in. Sure, they lose weight at first, even a bunch of weight—I did too, 15 pounds last summer—but then they hit a plateau. Maybe they’ll lose a couple pounds here and there, but then they’ll yoyo, always gaining it right back. Weight Watchers tells people that fruits and vegetables (except for avocados and fattening things like that) don’t count towards points. Sure, a medium banana is over 105 calories, but if you’re on Weight Watchers, your body totally won’t register these calories as calories. They’re free points! Eat three bananas—over 300 calories—you’ll only gain potassium, not weight.

Calories may not be the mantra of Weight Watchers but by denying their importance, they encourage subscribers to neglect them and gorge on things that, when consumed in concentrated amounts (as one does on WW because they’re often left hungry), add up to a lot of calories. Which then leads to WW-ers struggling to maintain the weight loss or lose more. Corporate "science" is not real science.