Do self-improvement courses work?

For a few months, about a year ago, my close friend Cheryl and I supervised a group in the Weight Watchers program. Cheryl, who has been a Weight Watcher member for many years, had been asked to take over as a Group Leader. Cheryl asked me to assist her as her clerk.

When we took over the group, the active membership numbers had whittled down to about 12 people who attended the once a week sessions on a regular basis. The meetings have a set structure, The first part is the weigh-in for the members, where they get a few moments to chat to the Group Leader about their progress, or non progress whichever might be the case. After this weighing process, there is a fairly brief motivational talk by the Group Leader, which could cover food news, achievements of other people and any other pointers the Group Leader can find. Not much assistance is provided by the organisation itself.

For the first few weeks, it was not even possible to offer the talk as members scuttled off home immediately after the weigh-in. As this particular group met after work, it was often that members dashed off home to have some food, having starved themselves during the day for a more favourable weighing result. As new members joined, Cheryl’s enthusiastic and warm way with people started to filter through, and members started staying for the talks. This group of regular attendees grew to about 45, within a six-week period.

During the 8 or so months that we managed this group of people, I was surprised to see that with all the new members, and there were a fair number, our group did not grow beyond the maximum number of about 45 regular attendees. Not only that, we had very few really successful members. That is, successful in that they actually lost the weight they needed to. Fair enough, there were a few who were calling in for their free weigh in, as they had reached their target weight and had maintained this weight for the requisite number of weeks. But out of the group of 120 to 150kg weigh in people, only a couple were able to get rid of between 10 to 30kg and often ended up stuck on that level or putting it on again, never to be seen again eventually. A husband and wife team were probably the most successful as they soldiered on to their goal weight in regular increments, and achieved this even over the Christmas period.

This would make one consider that a partnership, or teamwork could have been the main motivator. However, other husband and wife teams and teams consisting of family members such, as mother and daughter couples did not seem to work. Even this successful husband and wife team was therefore a rare success story.

As part of this participation in the Weight Watcher program, there were several meetings set up by the regional leader that Cheryl and I attended. During these meetings I was surprised to see that other Group Leaders were, mostly, still fairly overweight, with other words heavier than their recommended weight, and at a guess by at least 20kgs or more. It seemed quite strange that an organisation would have group leaders that could not really be considered shining examples of the program’s success.

It made me think though, as to why the success rate was so minimal. People joining, were paying money, were given the tools to succeed, encouragement and guidelines all the time and yet were not able to manage the weight loss they were trying to achieve. It reminded me of a self-development course I attended many years ago. It involved a weekend, in a group, with a main presenter from America and some locally sourced helpers.

The weekend itself was an incredibly uplifting experience. In fact so much so, that I decided to join as a volunteer and work on the next weekend course. This volunteer effort would allow me to attend another weekend, this time not as a direct participant though.

The first warning lights came up during the volunteer group meetings when I observed how the jockeying for “senior” positions were being handled. For supposedly enlightened people, the senior volunteers, i.e. people who had attended these weekends several times, behaved fairly unenlightened. I put it aside, as I had committed myself to this program and was going through with it regardless. However, this childish behaviour by a fair number of the volunteers manifested itself again and again over the course of the weekend and I realised that with all of the self-development help, these people had actually not moved forward at all. The program had not worked for them. Or at least, had had no lasting impact on the way they handled their life, relationships etc.

What is it about these programs then that make them a failure for so many people. The Weight Watchers program is well thought out and works as a weight loss regime, if adhered to. There is nothing wrong with it. The self-development weekend was brilliant. The principles taught and worked through should be effective in helping people cope with living. Why don’t they? Are people that set in their ways that they are incapable of making a change, even if they know that the change will be healthier physically or mentally or both. Are they incapable of leaving their comfort zone to try something different? Are bad habits easier to stick with than good ones? Whatever the reason, it certainly provides a money-making opportunity to the many self-development gurus out there that speak on the world stage circuit and produce endless numbers of books for this market.