Weight Loss Inc

Becky writes:

Barry’s script said, “A fat person is handing a bundle of cash to someone standing in the entrance to a building that has a sign saying “WEIGHT LOSS INC”. It looks like summer.” Luckily for both of us, Barry doesn’t mind when I don’t take his stage directions too literally. I thought it made sense for the saleswoman and customer to be all the way inside the store. We’d need to be behind the saleswoman and looking out the front window in order to observe the changing seasons. Here’s the initial sketch I showed Barry (along with some clothing ideas for the customer and a cool-looking font that I saw on an awning). Barry liked the layout!

This script calls for an unchanging environment, but it has to be clear that several months pass between each panel. Of course, the characters can dress differently for winter than summer. The tree can gain and lose leaves. But I tried to tell the story with color, as well. As an artist, I enjoy puzzles like “What color will convey ‘red brick building; also it’s dark and wet out?” I’m really happy with how the background turned out. It’s mostly hidden, but I think it does its job.

The light affects the interior of the store, too. The walls are white, but they’re also greenish when the tree outside is full, and orange when the store is being lit by warm overhead lights. (It’s funny to think that the bare white decor, concrete floor, and iPad will make this store look “dated” one day.)

Thanks for supporting Barry on Patreon so that he can pay me. Happy New Year!

Barry writes:

The basic idea behind this cartoon – that the economic model of the weight loss industry is based on weight loss never working in the long term for the vast majority of their customers — is hardly a unique observation. But it’s been said often because it’s true. Traci Mann, a professor who founded the Health and Eating Lab at the University of Minnesota, wrote about Weight Watchers (but this is applicable to the larger industry):

It’s the perfect business model. People give Weight Watchers the credit when they lose weight. Then they regain the weight and blame themselves. This sets them up to join Weight Watchers all over again, and they do.

The company brags about this to its shareholders. According to Weight Watchers’ business plan from 2001 (which I viewed in hard-copy form at a library), its members have “demonstrated a consistent pattern of repeat enrollment over a number of years,” signing up for an average of four separate program cycles. And in an interview for the documentary The Men Who Made Us Thin, former CFO Richard Samber explained that the reason the business was successful was because the majority of customers regained the weight they lost, or as he put it: “That’s where your business comes from.”

It’ll be interesting (and possibly horrifying) to see how the new weight-loss drugs will change things (and how they won’t). It appears that semaglutide (also known as Ozempic) and similar drugs, like a thousand weight-loss treatments before, won’t allow the overwhelming majority of fat patients to stop being fat.

What it might do is allow many more people to lose noticeable amounts of weight – so a 300 pound patient becomes a 270 pound patient – and to keep that weight off, as long as they continue taking semaglutide. Since Ozempic can easily cost a thousand dollars or more a month, this is another way that the weight loss industry can make everlasting profits off of fat patients who will never be “cured.”

In many ways, it’s just the same old thing – marketing to people by telling them to hate their own bodies – in a new injectable form.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels. They all show the same scene – the lobby of a weight-loss store – but a few months pass between each panel. In every panel, a fat redheaded woman, a customer, talks to a thin blonde woman, a saleswoman.

PANEL 1

Through the display window, we can see a green, leafy tree. A couple of bags of money lie under the counter. The customer is wearing a floral sundress and cardigan, and is opening a purse full of cash as she talks to the saleswoman.

CUSTOMER: I’d really like to lose weight.

SALESWOMAN: We can help! It’s only $200 to start!

PANEL 2

The tree has now lost all its leaves, and the customer is returning, carrying a sack of cash and wearing winter clothing. There’s more money under the counter.

CUSTOMER: I lost a bit of weight, but I’d like to lose more.

SALESWOMAN: You got it! For a modest monthly subscription.

PANEL 3

It’s now spring, and there are little pink flowers on the tree. The customer, in stretchy pants and a loose fitting long-sleeved top, returns with a grocery cart filled with bags of money. The saleswoman is cheery, but the customer is downcast. There are now so many moneybags under the counter that some are spilling out the side.

CUSTOMER: Now I’ve gained all the weight back… And a little more.

SALESWOMAN: You need our super subscription plan. It comes with an app!

PANEL 4

The tree is full and green again. The customer is back, with the shopping cart piled so high with money that she’s mostly hidden behind it. The room is filled with money bags, and the saleswoman is lounging on the pile of money, smiling happily.

CUSTOMER: Does it worry you that your weight loss plans keep on failing?

SALESWOMAN: Oh, yes, definitely. So very concerned!

CHICKEN FAT WATCH

“Chicken fat” is an obscure cartoonists’ term for fun background details. There’s a poster on the wall which says “Love Yourself,” but in the first three panels we can’t see the complete poster because the saleswoman stands in front of it. In panel four, we can finally see the small print below “Love Yourself”: “Not yet. Later. Once there’s less of you.”

Weight Loss Inc. | Patreon