Speaker 1: It's Friday, June. I'm about to do my first way in. UM.
Speaker 1: I'm a little nervous because my friend and I got
Speaker 1: dinner last night, but it was mostly vegetables. UM, but
Speaker 1: I did have a drink. Associate producer on the Calling
Speaker 1: Bullshit podcast, Haley Pascal Des and I'll probably go for
Speaker 1: a run this morning because they don't have any meetings.
Speaker 1: But I usually like to wear myself after a run
Speaker 1: if I run in the morning, because then I wait less.
Speaker 1: But now I miss telling me I need to win
Speaker 1: myself first thing in the morning. New is a digital
Speaker 1: health platform. Their flagship product is an app that promises
Speaker 1: a long term approach to weight loss, one based on
Speaker 1: psychology and personalization. To help us understand if they're living
Speaker 1: up to that promise, Haley volunteered to try it for
Speaker 1: thirty days and document or experience. So I just got
Speaker 1: back from my run. I am trying to run three
Speaker 1: times a week and this was my third run this week,
Speaker 1: so I'm feeling pretty good about that. And I logged
Speaker 1: it in noon. I listened to some of the lessons
Speaker 1: about the different foods that like. It was saying, like
Speaker 1: a cheeseburger and arugula are a pound of arugula are
Speaker 1: the same calorie density, and they'll both fill you up
Speaker 1: the same, but you obviously won't gain as much weight
Speaker 1: if you're eating a pound of arugula, which like, who
Speaker 1: was eating a pound of arugula versus eating a cheeseburger.
Speaker 1: But anyways, I'm a little nervous to start tracking my calories, Like,
Speaker 1: I feel like this is going to be difficult, but uh,
Speaker 1: let's see how it goes. Welcome to Calling Bullshit, the
Speaker 1: podcast about purpose washing, the gap between what an organization
Speaker 1: says they stand for and what they actually do and
Speaker 1: what they would need to change to practice what they preach.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Time Montague, and I've spent over a
Speaker 1: decade helping organizations define what they stand for, their purpose
Speaker 1: and then help them to use that purpose to drive
Speaker 1: transformation throughout their business. Unfortunately, at a lot of institutions today,
Speaker 1: there's still a pretty wide gap between word and deed.
Speaker 1: That gap has a name bullshit. But, and this is important,
Speaker 1: bullshit is serious, but it's also a treatable condition. So
Speaker 1: when our bullshit detector lights up, we're going to explore
Speaker 1: everything the organization should do to fix it new is popular.
Speaker 1: It has two fifty million downloads ads that pop up
Speaker 1: everywhere from podcasts to the Super Bowl, an evaluation of
Speaker 1: over three point seven billion dollars, and as they explained
Speaker 1: in this promo video, Noon claims to have been purpose
Speaker 1: led from the start thirteen years ago. Save Young and
Speaker 1: Art and Patakov founded Noon with one mission to help
Speaker 1: as many people as possible live healthier lives. Noon was
Speaker 1: created because healthcare has really become sick care and inefficient
Speaker 1: system designed to treat patients after they're already sick. Today,
Speaker 1: Noon is a trusted, consumer led digital health platform helping
Speaker 1: people around the world live healthier lives. Guided by principles
Speaker 1: of proven behavioral science. We've discovered the right combination of psychology, technology,
Speaker 1: and human coaching that empowers people to change their habits
Speaker 1: and take control of their health. I can fit in
Speaker 1: close that I've never been able to where before I
Speaker 1: lost eighty pounds on New. There's a much bigger connection
Speaker 1: with my mind and body now with New that I
Speaker 1: didn't have before, and I think that's the biggest difference.
Speaker 1: By pairing the power of the individual with proven science
Speaker 1: and psychology, we're building products that change behaviors for good
Speaker 1: and create transformational health outcomes. At Noon, we believe that
Speaker 1: better health begins with you, and behavior change starts with
Speaker 1: us co founders who spent years working towards their goal
Speaker 1: check tackling a real problem double check. At a glance,
Speaker 1: Noon looks fairly low BS. But digging a little deeper,
Speaker 1: I learned that health is incredibly complex and equating weight
Speaker 1: with health this puts New in murky territory where they
Speaker 1: risk harming the very people they say they exist to help.
Speaker 1: So have founders Artem and Saves You created an app
Speaker 1: that truly focuses on long term health or is now
Speaker 1: just another one size fits all diet that promises the
Speaker 1: unattainable while luring users into a cycle of failure, all
Speaker 1: in the name of wellness. Get out your BS detectors, folks,
Speaker 1: and join me as we weigh now on the bullshit scale. Alright,
Speaker 1: I see NOOM Healthy Weight Loss. It has seven hundred
Speaker 1: thousand reviews five star reviews, so well, it has a
Speaker 1: four point seven out of five, so it sounds great. Okay,
Speaker 1: it's downloading. It's like a little orange glow. So it says,
Speaker 1: Noon creates long term results through habit and behavior change,
Speaker 1: not restrictive dieting. Do you have an important event coming up?
Speaker 1: I mean one of the events is just summer, so
Speaker 1: don't choose that. How how confident are you in reaching
Speaker 1: one pounds by August? I'm uncertain. Why are you uncertain?
Speaker 1: I haven't had success in the past. Previous plans were
Speaker 1: too restrictive. There's a bun I'm going to say, I
Speaker 1: haven't had success in the past, and I will try
Speaker 1: to stick with it for a month. Noon I believe
Speaker 1: considers itself to be a wellness app, not a diet app.
Speaker 1: Why do you think our culture has moved away from
Speaker 1: the word diet and toward wellness? I think there's two reasons.
Speaker 1: The less cynical reason, the positive, let's be generous to
Speaker 1: people reason is because diet is a negative thing that
Speaker 1: people now think about. Diet means eating less, it's stigmatizing
Speaker 1: people that are overweight, and it's telling you to impose unreasonable,
Speaker 1: unhealthy restrictions on your eating behavior that aren't going to
Speaker 1: be good for you. So we're moving away from a
Speaker 1: diet culture because we're recognizing that dieting is problematic and
Speaker 1: we're using another term to try and capture something which
Speaker 1: is more positive and that's you know, that's a good thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that sounds like it's at least the right idea. It's
Speaker 1: the right idea behind that. Anything which is about changing
Speaker 1: your diet or eating less in your diet to lose
Speaker 1: weight is still really a dieting culture. My more cynical
Speaker 1: hat says that it's actually still the same old thing,
Speaker 1: it's just being slightly rebranded. Dr Gene Ogden is a
Speaker 1: professor of health psychology at the University of Surrey in
Speaker 1: the UK. She spent the last thirty years teaching, researching
Speaker 1: and writing about the intersection of psychology, food and health.
Speaker 1: Her six books include Health Psychology, The Psychology of Eating
Speaker 1: and Fat Chance The Myth of Dieting explained. My key
Speaker 1: area is to look at how psychology in terms of
Speaker 1: the perception of hunger, the meaning of food, the lives
Speaker 1: that we live, the childhoods that we have, the experiences
Speaker 1: we have in the world that we live in shape
Speaker 1: our relationship with food and make it very hard for
Speaker 1: us to actually eat less and to stay well. So,
Speaker 1: can you talk about some examples of unhealthy diet fads,
Speaker 1: either past or current, Just to give us a little context.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's an endless slimming products, which are just
Speaker 1: drinks really that you have as meal substitutes. There was
Speaker 1: the Beverly Hills diets, which said you just eat lots
Speaker 1: and lots and lots of fruits. You have constant diarrhea,
Speaker 1: and there was a quote from it which said something
Speaker 1: like the more time you spend on the toilet, the better.
Speaker 1: There was the cabbage soup diet, where you just drink
Speaker 1: and eat cabbage soup, which gives you the most horrendous wind.
Speaker 1: You spend a lot of your time bloated. It's very unsociable,
Speaker 1: but friends have no friends, No one ever wants to
Speaker 1: be near you. But eventually you lose a lot of
Speaker 1: weight because you're just eating cabbage soup. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: the thing, you know. If you eat cabbage soup for
Speaker 1: six weeks, you're loot weight. If you have diarrhea for
Speaker 1: six weeks, you will lose weight. And that is the
Speaker 1: problem with the diet industry and always has been. Is
Speaker 1: there anyone can invente anything to get you to lose weight,
Speaker 1: but you cannot maintain that for any length of time,
Speaker 1: So all weight pretty much goes back on again. That's
Speaker 1: also the money making fabulousness of the diet industry is
Speaker 1: it's designed to fail. So if you design a product
Speaker 1: which fails, people keep coming back and buying more of
Speaker 1: the product. So we're here to talk about Noon, the
Speaker 1: weight loss app that seems to be sweeping the world,
Speaker 1: and it's an app that promises to help as many
Speaker 1: people as possible live healthier lives through behavior change, and
Speaker 1: their flagship product, as best I can tell, is essentially
Speaker 1: a diet and psychology app rolled into one. And I
Speaker 1: understand that you've actually downloaded NEWM the past and and
Speaker 1: taking a look at it. What were your initial thoughts
Speaker 1: or impressions of new I mean, I like the idea
Speaker 1: that they're trying to bring psychology into it. I think
Speaker 1: that they're trying to take a holistic view of the individual,
Speaker 1: which is also a really good thing. My feeling when
Speaker 1: I've had a look at it is that it probably
Speaker 1: hasn't got as much psychology in it as I would like,
Speaker 1: and also it's not as careful about not doing harm
Speaker 1: as I think it probably should be. So anybody can
Speaker 1: go on it unless you've got to be am I
Speaker 1: under eighteen point five which includes an awful lot of
Speaker 1: people that don't need to lose weight. I would say,
Speaker 1: if you'll be a eyes between twenty and twenty five,
Speaker 1: don't try and lose weight. Why would you try and
Speaker 1: lose weight, because you're fine as you are. Growing up,
Speaker 1: Like I remember, we'd get US Weekly and Cosmopolitan magazine
Speaker 1: and like just the women in there, It's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: celebrities were just so thin. And we were obsessed with
Speaker 1: celebrity culture when I was growing up, and I'm not
Speaker 1: so much anymore. But we would just like inspect these
Speaker 1: magazines and like to say, how good these women looked.
Speaker 1: And we always talked about like we want to look
Speaker 1: like them, Like how do we look like them? I
Speaker 1: feel like the way I look is the most important thing. Sometimes.
Speaker 1: I used to have a certain body that I don't
Speaker 1: have anymore, and I'm always trying to get back to
Speaker 1: that body. Like I've stayed the same way for the
Speaker 1: past two years, and I've been trying to like lose
Speaker 1: the same five pounds for that that time. But I'm
Speaker 1: also wondering, like maybe I'm just getting older and my
Speaker 1: metabolism slowing down, and this is just what I weigh
Speaker 1: now and it's just what I look like now, which
Speaker 1: I might just have to come to terms with. But um, yeah,
Speaker 1: so I'd love to hear you talk about out the
Speaker 1: connections between physical health, mental health, and emotional well being
Speaker 1: when it comes to food. So for me, it's very
Speaker 1: very clear that the mind and body are related, absolutely interrelated,
Speaker 1: so that how we think, our emotions, our childhoods are
Speaker 1: learning have a direct impact upon our physical bodies and
Speaker 1: our physical health, and our physical health has a direct
Speaker 1: relationship on how we think and how we feel and
Speaker 1: our emotional well being. So those two things are very
Speaker 1: clearly interrelated. Everybody has a very personal relationship with food,
Speaker 1: a personal relationship with their physical bodies, and also a
Speaker 1: meaning around the body size that they have. That is
Speaker 1: why trying to change somebody's eating behavior is so incredibly difficult,
Speaker 1: because food means something to each person in a very
Speaker 1: different way. And what you need to do to get
Speaker 1: someone to change their eating behavior is to first understand
Speaker 1: the role that food plays in their lives and then
Speaker 1: help them see that role of food and then help
Speaker 1: them change that. And that's a very difficult thing to do, right,
Speaker 1: So can dieting. Lest we just curse the darkness. Can
Speaker 1: dieting ever actually benefit a person's health, Like, is there
Speaker 1: such a thing as a beneficial diet? Absolutely? And that's
Speaker 1: where the word diet, you know, has been kind of
Speaker 1: I don't know, has has got so much kind of
Speaker 1: negativity around it where it's ruined. There's nothing wrong with
Speaker 1: deciding to eat more healthily, to change your diet and
Speaker 1: to make healthier choices, and that's got to be a
Speaker 1: good thing for you. And if that involves reducing your
Speaker 1: calorie and take eating fewer snacks, making sure that you
Speaker 1: have more fruit and vegetables, or that you have brown
Speaker 1: bread rather than white bread, or that you don't deep
Speaker 1: fry your foods, those are all dietary choices and those
Speaker 1: are sustainable. And if that's called a diet, so be it.
Speaker 1: But that's sustainabul and that can work. I started on Friday.
Speaker 1: It's been good. I don't hit it. There's like these
Speaker 1: little mini lessons that I have to complete every day
Speaker 1: and it starts out like newm one oh one. So
Speaker 1: it's kind of just trying to tell you about the
Speaker 1: psychology of what you're eating. One of the first lessons
Speaker 1: was like start eating less dense, so it categorizes like
Speaker 1: fruits and veggies are green. It like encourages you to
Speaker 1: eat as many fruits and veggies as you want. Then
Speaker 1: there's like a yellow category, which are things that you
Speaker 1: are supposed to eat moderation, and then there's an orange category,
Speaker 1: which are things that you're not supposed to eat a
Speaker 1: lot of. It hasn't been as hard as I thought
Speaker 1: to track calories. There's a weight loss though, So if
Speaker 1: you're in the zone, you're good. I'd love your take
Speaker 1: on on some of the more technical aspects of the program. So,
Speaker 1: first of all, New employs a traffic light system for
Speaker 1: categorizing all foods. What is your perspective just on that
Speaker 1: kind of categorization. I think actually that quite effective. You're
Speaker 1: not saying these are good or bad food, so I
Speaker 1: think sometimes that kind of dichotomized demonizing a food can
Speaker 1: be quite problematic. But you're giving people fairly simple information
Speaker 1: saying these are the foods to go for fill your
Speaker 1: plate up with these, So it's a fairly simple way
Speaker 1: of doing that. When you drill down into the nitty
Speaker 1: gritty of that, it can become a little bit problematic
Speaker 1: because things like nuts, which are good for you are
Speaker 1: also really high fat, so you know where do they belong.
Speaker 1: It's not like smoking, where you can say don't smoke
Speaker 1: cigarettes are bad for you. There's very few just bad foods.
Speaker 1: I'd love to get perspective on a couple of other
Speaker 1: new strategies here. So one is to weigh yourself every day.
Speaker 1: It's you know, theoretically it's a good motivational strategy because
Speaker 1: you get instant feedback. So the thing about behavior change
Speaker 1: is quite often the goals are in this short term,
Speaker 1: but the rewards are in the long term. So you know,
Speaker 1: you want to lose weight now, but the reward is
Speaker 1: that you won't have a heart attack when you're saying
Speaker 1: ext or that you will not get diabetes in the
Speaker 1: future years, and that steels such a long way in
Speaker 1: the future that people just ignore that and they really
Speaker 1: want immediate benefits. The problem with weighing yourself every day
Speaker 1: is a weight naturally fluctuates, and from our studies, weighing
Speaker 1: yourself every day was good and reinforcing if your weight
Speaker 1: went down. But if your weight goes up because of
Speaker 1: whatever else is happening in your life, then that can
Speaker 1: lead to kind of catastrophizing and thinking oh god, it's hopeless.
Speaker 1: All the effort I put in yesterday, why bother? And
Speaker 1: I still didn't lose weight. So you're far better off
Speaker 1: getting the reinforcement not on the body weight, but the
Speaker 1: reinforcement on the behavior. So it's andy, do I four
Speaker 1: and yesterday and to do? I wait in at one
Speaker 1: one five points six, which is the lowest I've been
Speaker 1: in time. I'm happy about it. Another thing that the
Speaker 1: new map asks for actually is for you to enter
Speaker 1: a goal weight, and in some cases with a timeline attached,
Speaker 1: so a goal weight for an upcoming event, a wedding
Speaker 1: or a vacation something like that. How do you feel
Speaker 1: about that? Well, again, it's double edged. Sorry, this is
Speaker 1: going to be my answer to everything. So the research
Speaker 1: shows that it's good to plan and it's good to
Speaker 1: set goals. So it's no good saying to yourself I
Speaker 1: will eat well or I will lose weight. You need
Speaker 1: to say I will eat well tomorrow, and I will
Speaker 1: eat this, this and this, and I will lose weight
Speaker 1: by next Saturday or lose weight by June. So goal
Speaker 1: setting is really good if that goal setting is based around,
Speaker 1: you know, stereotypes of having to be thin for your wedding,
Speaker 1: or stereotypes of wanting to go to a party and
Speaker 1: looking attractive by having lost a bit of weight, or
Speaker 1: wanting to be beach ready and get onto the beach
Speaker 1: in your bikini. That's not great because that's really forcing
Speaker 1: the stereotypes that you know, the only way to be
Speaker 1: attractive is to be thinner. And the other problem is
Speaker 1: that when goals fail, we then feel worse about ourselves. Okay,
Speaker 1: today with one eighteen point for which I'm a little
Speaker 1: disappointed in um. The other day I was like one
Speaker 1: sixteen something, So I will lock that in newm now.
Speaker 1: And one of the things I assume you'll think this
Speaker 1: is a good thing, but I don't know. One of
Speaker 1: the other things the app asked you to do is
Speaker 1: ten minutes of what they call CBT cognitive behavioral therapy
Speaker 1: per day. Well, if that's kind of encouraging mindful eating,
Speaker 1: that's probably quite a good thing. If it's encouraging being
Speaker 1: kind to yourself, that's a good thing. And if it's
Speaker 1: encouraging changing the way you think about food, I think
Speaker 1: that's a good thing. The problem with that is that again,
Speaker 1: all those thoughts that we have and the role of
Speaker 1: food in our lives is so personalized. It's quite good
Speaker 1: to have someone to help us do that really, just
Speaker 1: to ask you how does food feature in your life
Speaker 1: and then try and change the way that we think
Speaker 1: about foods. So I think it's you know, it's slightly
Speaker 1: easy just tossing that out as a kind of psychological
Speaker 1: bits to do a bit of CVT, you need to
Speaker 1: properly support and structure that process. The reason I'm making
Speaker 1: this audio diary is because I just got a new
Speaker 1: one on one coach and I just, what's a little
Speaker 1: confused about what she said to me. She just sent
Speaker 1: me an intro message and it says, I'm your coach, Catherine,
Speaker 1: And she read my Big Picture survey, which is like
Speaker 1: the big thing I want to complete at the end
Speaker 1: of noon, And I said that I want to run
Speaker 1: ten miles um. But she said, after reading a Big
Speaker 1: Picture survey, it sounds like you were motivated to give
Speaker 1: yourself what you know that you deserve, making yourself a priority.
Speaker 1: It can be tough to live life to the fullest
Speaker 1: when you do not feel comfortable in your body. What
Speaker 1: excites you the most about the possibility of hitting those
Speaker 1: ten miles um? I thought That was a little strange,
Speaker 1: that message, because it starts with saying that I'm not
Speaker 1: comfortable in my body, and that is not something I
Speaker 1: said in my big picture. Running ten miles is a
Speaker 1: fitness goal and it really has nothing to do with
Speaker 1: how other people see me. I think it would just
Speaker 1: make me really proud if I could do it without walking. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm confused about her message. So is this just
Speaker 1: a bump in the road that leads to a healthier
Speaker 1: life or is there something fundamentally flawed about noons approach
Speaker 1: the conclusion the Hayley's Thirty Days of New and News
Speaker 1: final BS score right after the break definitely falling behind
Speaker 1: on the lessons. They're feeling a little repetitive, so it's
Speaker 1: kind of a challenge to do them. I was frustrated
Speaker 1: this weekend because I pizza and ice cream on Friday
Speaker 1: and I weighed myself and I it like one up,
Speaker 1: like two pounds, like almost back to where I started.
Speaker 1: And it was just like frustrating and annoying because I
Speaker 1: want to be able to enjoy pizza and ice cream sometimes,
Speaker 1: but my weight is not really going down. I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess we'll see, but it's almost three weeks. But
Speaker 1: I do feel like healthier overall, Like I'm definitely When
Speaker 1: I want to snack, I'm like, oh, eat a handful
Speaker 1: of cherries instead of a handful of chips. But it
Speaker 1: is getting harder to do it, Like it's getting harder
Speaker 1: to track everything I eat. Eat and New makes you
Speaker 1: obsessive because I constantly have to do the lessons. I
Speaker 1: can't have to lick my food. I have to put
Speaker 1: in my exercise like you're always in New. One of
Speaker 1: the other things that the app asked you to do
Speaker 1: is track all of your food and count all of
Speaker 1: your calories. Well, so there's also attention. All of this
Speaker 1: is so problematic. It's all problematic because a good thing
Speaker 1: is to eat mindfully. It's a fine line between eating
Speaker 1: mindfully and becoming obsessed with what you're eating. The chances
Speaker 1: are if you're a bit that way inclined, you will
Speaker 1: slip across into food obsession. And I think that's the problem.
Speaker 1: You know, what you really want is for food to
Speaker 1: be a bit of your life, but not everything in
Speaker 1: your life. I got a new phone, and yeah, my
Speaker 1: new all my new progress is gone. My one on
Speaker 1: one coach has been super unresponsive. She only answers like
Speaker 1: every three days. UM, so she really hasn't been helping
Speaker 1: me much. And I contacted support and they said that
Speaker 1: she's the only one that can reset my progress. So
Speaker 1: it's been four or five days that I haven't been
Speaker 1: able to like do my lessons, which I'm realizing our
Speaker 1: big part of the motivation for me to be in
Speaker 1: the app. I feel like I definitely had a plateau recently.
Speaker 1: I am definitely not as good about portion sizes. I'm
Speaker 1: definitely going back to some of the bad habits that
Speaker 1: I had before I started. Now. I think I was
Speaker 1: so excited in the beginning, and now it's just like
Speaker 1: this is getting old? Is new? Getting it right? Would
Speaker 1: you say? Or do they have some work to do?
Speaker 1: I think the thing about any app, including Noom, is
Speaker 1: that they are only as good as the people who
Speaker 1: carry on using them. So you have to carry on
Speaker 1: using an app in order for it to work. And
Speaker 1: any app, including Noom, has got a high drop out rate.
Speaker 1: So I think that's the first problem, is that it's
Speaker 1: not helping as many people as it perhaps would like
Speaker 1: to do because people are dropping out of the actual app.
Speaker 1: I think the second thing is that it's always in
Speaker 1: danger of doing harm. So that's always a problem with
Speaker 1: weight loss. Always a problem with food is that we
Speaker 1: can slither into doing harm very quickly. If it works,
Speaker 1: some people feel better about themselves. If it stops working,
Speaker 1: then people feel worse about themselves. So it's it's always
Speaker 1: getting that balance, really, And I think the other thing
Speaker 1: is it's dealing with people who don't necessarily need to
Speaker 1: lose weight for their health. That's problematic. It needs to
Speaker 1: target people who I would say, you know, be am
Speaker 1: I thirty and above, maybe twenty seven and above, nobody else,
Speaker 1: and then those people can benefit from it, but no
Speaker 1: one else is potentially harmed from it. Hello. Today is Friday,
Speaker 1: July twenty two, and it's been a week now since
Speaker 1: I lost my progress um and someone at support said,
Speaker 1: why don't you try deleting the app and reinstalling the app.
Speaker 1: So I did that and now all my progresses back
Speaker 1: to where it was. I can see my lessons, So
Speaker 1: I'm really excited to start doing lessons again. I'm looking
Speaker 1: at my weight graph, excited to have it back so
Speaker 1: I can see my progress, and yeah, it looks like
Speaker 1: it's mostly going down. I mean it's definitely fluctuated. A
Speaker 1: lot um started at one one point four, then a
Speaker 1: week later I went back up to one one eight,
Speaker 1: then it went back up to one one seven point eight,
Speaker 1: and now it's been declining for a couple of days.
Speaker 1: And I see this little red at the one one twelve.
Speaker 1: It looks pretty far away, but it looks like it's
Speaker 1: trying to get me there by mid August. So maybe
Speaker 1: I can do it. And So if says you Jong,
Speaker 1: the co founder and CEO of the company, we're here,
Speaker 1: what kind of advice would you give him about changes
Speaker 1: that he ought to consider making to the app in
Speaker 1: order to serve and help as many people as possible.
Speaker 1: What I would say is that it's about building in
Speaker 1: as many short term rewards as possible really into the system,
Speaker 1: and you should always focus on the behavior and the
Speaker 1: feeling and not the weight. The problem is is that
Speaker 1: this goes back to our initial discussion about whether it's
Speaker 1: a diet app or a well being app. We still
Speaker 1: live in a dieting world, and a dieting world is
Speaker 1: people who want to lose weight. So you need to
Speaker 1: find a way of saying will make you happy, we
Speaker 1: will help you develop healthier habits and have a good
Speaker 1: relationship with food and being more active and then and
Speaker 1: by the way, you might also lose some weight, but
Speaker 1: you take weight out of the picture really right, exactly,
Speaker 1: I mean the focus of the app. It puts weight
Speaker 1: right at the center, and that does feel like the
Speaker 1: emphasis is wrong. If they truly believe in helping people
Speaker 1: live healthier lives, so the ideal app would actually not
Speaker 1: address food at all in a way and make it
Speaker 1: or or at least try to de emphasize it. It
Speaker 1: would emphasize weight. I would de emphasize weight. I think right, Hello,
Speaker 1: it's Saturday, July four, Um, I think for my thirty
Speaker 1: days is tomorrow, and I am being less restrictive than
Speaker 1: I was at the beginning of this, and my weight
Speaker 1: is not my weight is kind of plate towing because
Speaker 1: of it. Just thinking about what I was about being
Speaker 1: less restrictive with my diet, I think, I'm I'm pretty
Speaker 1: proud of the way I've lost and I worked out
Speaker 1: four times this week, and um, I also feeling good
Speaker 1: about the way I've been eating, um and hoping to
Speaker 1: continue to all this weight, but but pretty happy with
Speaker 1: the with the results so far. So you know with
Speaker 1: an app like noomor with Noom, you're going to set
Speaker 1: a goal. If you meet it, you feel great. If
Speaker 1: you fail, you feel like you've failed. If you lose weight,
Speaker 1: you feel great. If you haven't lost weight, then you
Speaker 1: feel rubbish about yourself. And so it only works for
Speaker 1: those people that it works for, and then it could
Speaker 1: possibly do harmful all the people that it doesn't work for,
Speaker 1: which is why they drop out. Today I weighed myself
Speaker 1: and I weighed one one eight point four, just the
Speaker 1: same weight when I started new and I don't know
Speaker 1: what happened. I feel very frustrated. I'm just I feel
Speaker 1: like I put a lot of effort into it. I
Speaker 1: put a lot of time into it. I really wanted
Speaker 1: to be I've been like steadily at and I wanted
Speaker 1: to end this on that note like, oh I had
Speaker 1: lost three pounds, like I did it um, but no.
Speaker 1: One of my big goals was to just work out more.
Speaker 1: I basically have been running three times a week for
Speaker 1: the past month, which I feel so good about. And
Speaker 1: I can just tell that I'm getting stronger, so I
Speaker 1: am really proud of that. I just find like the
Speaker 1: scale very confusing because I like literally just jumped from
Speaker 1: one seven yesterday and then I jumped again today. So
Speaker 1: I'm like, did I actually lose three pounds? I don't
Speaker 1: think I did. I think this is just like the
Speaker 1: way I am, and I'm just I'm just thinking that
Speaker 1: I really don't know what way it means. And I
Speaker 1: don't want to put so much pressure on losing five
Speaker 1: pounds because there are some good habits I've learned from Noon,
Speaker 1: and yeah, and I want I want to take that away. Okay,
Speaker 1: this is my last question for you, Jane. We have
Speaker 1: something on this show we call the BS scale, and
Speaker 1: it goes from zero to one. On our scale, zero
Speaker 1: is the best I eat zero BS and a hundred
Speaker 1: is the worst total BS. So, given that Noon's mission
Speaker 1: is to help as many people as possible live healthier
Speaker 1: lives through behavior change, what score would you give New
Speaker 1: And I'm allowed to justify this on tie of course
Speaker 1: you are yes, very interesting and why well, okay, I
Speaker 1: would give them probably a forty I think zero. Okay,
Speaker 1: So I admire some of what they're trying to do.
Speaker 1: I admire that they are making it more psychological, admire
Speaker 1: that they are bringing in goals. I admire that they
Speaker 1: are trying to get people to do a bit of CBT,
Speaker 1: and I admire their their big picture thinking. I mean,
Speaker 1: how wonderful to change as many people as possibles relationship
Speaker 1: with food and well being and health and and all
Speaker 1: of that. I think that's fabulous. At the same time,
Speaker 1: I think they're setting their sites far too high. I
Speaker 1: think they're underestimating the possibility of doing harm to those
Speaker 1: people that they include in it. And I think they're
Speaker 1: including too many people. I think they need to be
Speaker 1: more selective in who they collect in their little group
Speaker 1: so that they can minimize how much harm they do.
Speaker 1: But I mean, as a marketing strategy, fabulous. I mean,
Speaker 1: let's have world health and peace and the rest of it.
Speaker 1: That's as goal, isn't it, which you know isn't going
Speaker 1: to be met. Yeah, Jane, thank you. I've so enjoyed
Speaker 1: talking to you today. Thank you for coming on the show.
Speaker 1: You're very welcome. You're very welcome. Everybody has a complex
Speaker 1: relationship with food, and helping users to understand this relationship
Speaker 1: and ultimately make choices that will serve their health is
Speaker 1: a massive goal for any company, and a noble one
Speaker 1: to so. In some ways, I understand newmes approach here.
Speaker 1: We do need to have some way of measuring health,
Speaker 1: but his body weight or body size the right metric.
Speaker 1: Newmes stated purpose is to help as many people as
Speaker 1: possible live healthier lives through behavior change, and there's no
Speaker 1: doubt that the app has helped tens of thousands of people.
Speaker 1: But as Jane points out, they've set their sights too high.
Speaker 1: After following Haley's journey, I will say that Noon certainly
Speaker 1: seems to be pulling off the behavior change part of
Speaker 1: their purpose, but their end goal of health is at
Speaker 1: odds with some of their tactics. Overall, I have to
Speaker 1: say my PS detector is pegged higher than Jayne's Noons
Speaker 1: approach to eating and health is definitely more similar to
Speaker 1: the diets that preceded than it is different. But Noons
Speaker 1: position certainly doesn't feel hopeless. We'll be back right after
Speaker 1: the break to talk through some concrete ways that Noon
Speaker 1: can close the gap between word and deed. Okay, I
Speaker 1: am very excited to get into today's panel. I want
Speaker 1: to ask you both to first introduce yourselves and tell
Speaker 1: us a little bit about your work. Let's start with you. Sure, um, Hi, everyone,
Speaker 1: my name is Ealings. Hi. I'm a registered dietitian based
Speaker 1: in Brooklyn, New York, and I currently provide nutrition counseling
Speaker 1: through a private practice. UM. I have a special interest
Speaker 1: in supporting those with eating disorders or anywhere along the
Speaker 1: spectrum of disordered eating, as well as those with endocrine
Speaker 1: related conditions like diabetes. I practice nutrition through the lens
Speaker 1: of weight inclusivity, and I do my work informed by
Speaker 1: the theories of intuitive eating, mindful eating, health at every size,
Speaker 1: and other non diet approaches to nutrition. M love that.
Speaker 1: Thank you. UM Okay, Taylor your turn. Hi. Everyone, I'm
Speaker 1: Taylor Madjuski. I am a journalist based in San Francisco, California.
Speaker 1: I started my career writing about technology, but over the
Speaker 1: past couple of years have really started to cover health
Speaker 1: and science more in a out of my work touches
Speaker 1: on those topics through a gender lens. And I'm so
Speaker 1: excited to be here. Awesome, let's jump right in. Each
Speaker 1: one of you has come prepared with an idea to
Speaker 1: help new better live up to their mission, which is
Speaker 1: just to remind folks to help as many people as
Speaker 1: possible live healthier lives through behavior change. Taylor I'm gonna
Speaker 1: let you go first, this time in two minutes or less.
Speaker 1: What's the one thing that you would change about now? Sure?
Speaker 1: So last year I wrote an article on newon. I
Speaker 1: investigated them for a couple of months, and I think
Speaker 1: that the biggest thing that stands out for me is
Speaker 1: that new claims that it's grounded in evidence based science,
Speaker 1: and to their credit, they have published a number of scientific,
Speaker 1: peer reviewed articles, but I think that none of these
Speaker 1: studies support its central marketing claim, which is that it
Speaker 1: will help you lose weight and keep it off for life.
Speaker 1: And that's sort of the ultimate claim in the diet
Speaker 1: weight loss world. And the study that they cite to
Speaker 1: support this was published in and that tract users for
Speaker 1: seventy two weeks. And so I think that my suggestion
Speaker 1: is quite simple, and it's simply to conduct a longer
Speaker 1: and more robust scientific study because they need academic research
Speaker 1: on long term behavior change to support their claims. Great idea,
Speaker 1: and that makes a ton of sense, right, If you're
Speaker 1: going to say it, you've got to be able to
Speaker 1: back it up. Thank you, link. I'm gonna ask you
Speaker 1: to go, now, what's the one thing that you would
Speaker 1: do to help newm better do their story. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I have so many issues just with the mission
Speaker 1: statement just starting there. You know, in my opinion, it's
Speaker 1: pretty steeped in health is um, which is this idea
Speaker 1: that health is a within someone's control and their responsibility
Speaker 1: is something that they have a moral obligation to fulfill.
Speaker 1: You know, the fact that they focus just on behavior
Speaker 1: change really leaves out some of the structural systems that
Speaker 1: can really impact someone's health, like economic status, housing status,
Speaker 1: employment rachel by us in the healthcare SISM. I could
Speaker 1: go on, and so I think the mission statement itself
Speaker 1: is already pretty faulty logic. I think once we get
Speaker 1: into the meat of the product, it's a weight loss tool,
Speaker 1: and we also know that there's a lot of physical
Speaker 1: and mental emotional harm that comes with intentional weight loss
Speaker 1: and weight cycling. So my suggestion for new to better
Speaker 1: improve their company and just do better in general, is
Speaker 1: to scrub all of the diet and weight related messaging
Speaker 1: from their platform. I know it sounds extreme, but the
Speaker 1: way they're currently conducting business is perpetuating a lot of harm,
Speaker 1: particularly for people who have vulnerable relationships with food and
Speaker 1: their body. To be in with so I would invite
Speaker 1: them to untie the cognitive behavioral therapy part from the
Speaker 1: promise of weight loss and improved health. Maybe maintain a
Speaker 1: platform that's educational and allows people to learn about how
Speaker 1: they each have developed their own relationship with food and body,
Speaker 1: but not make this promise that by acknowledging some of
Speaker 1: the psychological components of eating that you'll automatically lose weight
Speaker 1: and become a healthier person. That's a very valid idea.
Speaker 1: My fear has always been that we're all going to
Speaker 1: come up with the same ideas, but I think we
Speaker 1: have slightly different takes on this. So um, I'm very
Speaker 1: curious to know what the experts think. I I submit
Speaker 1: this humbly because I know very little about this, but
Speaker 1: it's fair to say that there are a lot of
Speaker 1: folks in the medical community who seem to believe that
Speaker 1: the measurement that matters more to health is your body
Speaker 1: mass index. And the other relevant fact to my idea
Speaker 1: is that we have an obesity crisis in the US,
Speaker 1: and all the science agrees that obesity causes a bunch
Speaker 1: of health problems. So here's my idea. If Newon really
Speaker 1: is a health and wellness app, then it should be
Speaker 1: guiding us to a place where getting your b m
Speaker 1: I into the healthy range is the goal. So for reference,
Speaker 1: a healthy b m I is supposedly between eighteen point
Speaker 1: five and about twenty five. So if you're already in
Speaker 1: the healthy range, let's say up to five, it should
Speaker 1: discourage you from even setting a weight loss goal and
Speaker 1: discourage you from counting calories, and maybe that functionality is
Speaker 1: actually turned off in the app below a b m
Speaker 1: I of to really discourage it, because the current apps
Speaker 1: obsession with weight goals and calorie counting feels so much
Speaker 1: more like a diet app than a health app. So
Speaker 1: that's my idea. I would guess that they've emphasized dieting
Speaker 1: because it's the ultimate sort of business model, right. It's
Speaker 1: super hard to lose weight and keep weight off, so
Speaker 1: they know you're going to fail and you keep paying,
Speaker 1: and that's kind of the special sauce. I mean, the
Speaker 1: diet industry has thrived for years on that dynamic. So
Speaker 1: I guess my question is do we think that there
Speaker 1: is a viable business model that isn't about losing weight?
Speaker 1: I would argue there is because people do have a
Speaker 1: desire to learn and have insight about their relationship with
Speaker 1: their body and food, But the only way we've ever
Speaker 1: talked about that is in relation to weight, and so
Speaker 1: I think neutral information would then help people make informed
Speaker 1: decisions about how they would like to eat and maybe
Speaker 1: even connecting that to how they feel when they eat
Speaker 1: different foods. So I don't think we're losing an opportunity
Speaker 1: to have people engage with the company if we were
Speaker 1: to eliminate weight loss as the goal. Yeah, that makes sense, Taylor.
Speaker 1: Do you have any any thoughts about that? Yeah, so
Speaker 1: many thoughts, Like there's two things happening here. It's a
Speaker 1: business that's targeting your health, and I think that those
Speaker 1: things often are just in conflict with each other. You
Speaker 1: kind of maybe get roped into that education piece of Okay,
Speaker 1: I want to kind of start to learn, like how
Speaker 1: the things that I eat affect me or whatever. But
Speaker 1: then what they're capitalizing and it is all of the
Speaker 1: different signals that are all around us all the time
Speaker 1: that are saying beef in lose weight. At the end
Speaker 1: of the day, their business, they're trying to make money,
Speaker 1: so they're trying to sell you something. When I reported
Speaker 1: on them, the sort of growth at all costs mentality
Speaker 1: came up all the time. And I think this is
Speaker 1: a larger problem with like health tech in general, which
Speaker 1: is that, like these are businesses, they have to grow
Speaker 1: at all costs. There is venture capital dollars behind them,
Speaker 1: and so they have pressure to do so. And I
Speaker 1: think that we need to be very wary of that
Speaker 1: when it comes to like actually using these products to
Speaker 1: address health concerns that we might have, Because wanting to
Speaker 1: lose weight or wanting to take some control over your
Speaker 1: health is a perfectly valid thing to want to experience,
Speaker 1: Like we all care about our bodies. It's our vessel
Speaker 1: for living. It's so hard because health and capitalism aren't
Speaker 1: conflict with each other on a fundamental level. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: very much agree that this sort of the big like
Speaker 1: health and tech and and and capitalism, how do they
Speaker 1: work together? So newm is making money off of people
Speaker 1: being promised to lose weight, not necessarily if they are
Speaker 1: you know, um, sustainably. I think that goes back to
Speaker 1: what Taylor said about getting a study going. We just
Speaker 1: don't have the evidence, necessarily, num or otherwise that weight
Speaker 1: loss can be sustained. But I did want to address
Speaker 1: this thought about um tie your idea of b m I.
Speaker 1: That's what That's what I was going to bring up,
Speaker 1: is that is that a valid measure? Yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: fault you at all for thinking b m I first, Right,
Speaker 1: my backgrounds in public health, so all of the research
Speaker 1: we had to read use b m I as a
Speaker 1: way to categorize people and then learn about different outcomes.
Speaker 1: But actually there's been a lot of dialogue recently, and
Speaker 1: not not just recently, but I think it's gaining steam
Speaker 1: that really can see all of the many faults within
Speaker 1: the b m I too. So just to clarify what
Speaker 1: it is, it is just a mathematic, full equation of
Speaker 1: height and weight that was developed by an astronomer a
Speaker 1: long time ago, UM to just generally understand the average
Speaker 1: man and also Caucasian man. Right. It's also very it's
Speaker 1: a very non inclusive measure exactly, That's exactly right. And
Speaker 1: so the b m I does not do a good
Speaker 1: job of giving us any indication of somebody's health. The
Speaker 1: truth is that in my experience counseling people in lots
Speaker 1: of different settings, is that people can uh work through
Speaker 1: ways of changing parts of their behavior to better manage
Speaker 1: a medical condition. It doesn't mean the lose weight or
Speaker 1: that their b m I will change, but indicators of
Speaker 1: health like their blood pressure, or like their cholesterol, or
Speaker 1: like their feelings of well being, our stamina and all
Speaker 1: those things can still be improved. So I would invite
Speaker 1: us to just think more broadly about what other ways
Speaker 1: we can define health and make sure people are defining
Speaker 1: that for themselves. Some thoughts on that, and I think
Speaker 1: this also comes back to health tech. Health apps like
Speaker 1: new who promise personalization because health is personal when you
Speaker 1: sign up for an app, how much can a questionnaire
Speaker 1: really gather about your health when it's trying to appeal
Speaker 1: to that large of an audience. I think actually being
Speaker 1: honest about the limitations of your technology and what you
Speaker 1: can deliver to improve people's health can help to earn trust,
Speaker 1: to be like, you know, we can't offer this right now,
Speaker 1: but we're working on it. Or take this information, bring
Speaker 1: it to your doctor. There are companies that do that
Speaker 1: sort of thing, and I think it really from a
Speaker 1: marketing perspective at least, like really helps to build that trust.
Speaker 1: That's another thing is if if their body language as
Speaker 1: an app was we're constantly learning, We're trying to improve
Speaker 1: all the time. And so, for instance, to your your idea, Taylor,
Speaker 1: of them fielding a study to get at a better
Speaker 1: grip on you know, what works and what doesn't in
Speaker 1: weight loss, that could be an ongoing thing. In other words,
Speaker 1: there could be a drop down that says, these are
Speaker 1: the ten studies that we have going right now, would
Speaker 1: you like to participate in any of them as a user?
Speaker 1: And you know, maybe they pay you to participate, or
Speaker 1: maybe the app is free if you participate in studies,
Speaker 1: or and so that the relationship that you forge with
Speaker 1: people is you're both learning together as opposed to we
Speaker 1: are the people who know everything and you are just
Speaker 1: going to count your calories and and lose four pounds, right,
Speaker 1: mm hmm exactly. I think I would like that app better.
Speaker 1: Maybe I think I would to. I also think it
Speaker 1: would be so interesting in such an opportunity for a
Speaker 1: company to talk about health in terms that are not
Speaker 1: so so quantitative. It's not necessarily something that can be
Speaker 1: boiled down to one number. But for example, maybe there
Speaker 1: could be encouraging someone to go to the doctor and
Speaker 1: make all their fallow up appointments I think it'd be
Speaker 1: interesting to think about actual actions that people could take
Speaker 1: that just connect them to their health without saying and
Speaker 1: then now you're also going to be rated or even
Speaker 1: pitted against yourself. Here's where you were last year, look
Speaker 1: at where you are now. That type of thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it comes down to the value system that
Speaker 1: they're enacting. Kind of as it stands right now, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of value on Thinness because, for example, again
Speaker 1: even going through that onboarding today, they were asking questions
Speaker 1: that I had seen before around you know, do you
Speaker 1: want to lose weight for an upcoming event like a
Speaker 1: vacation or a wedding. That's not weight neutral. That's valuing Thinness.
Speaker 1: And to be fair, they are trying the cognitive behavior
Speaker 1: therapy functionality in there that that's maybe a place where
Speaker 1: I'd give them credit is like they are trying to
Speaker 1: differentiate themselves as a company by saying we're not just
Speaker 1: wait last you know, you're you're gaining insight into yourself,
Speaker 1: but we we shouldn't be equating those two that gaining
Speaker 1: and say into yourself means you need to lose weight
Speaker 1: and will right, Taylor, just I want to delve into
Speaker 1: for a moment. The comment that you made about growth,
Speaker 1: that impulse seems to be a very common impulse in
Speaker 1: let's call it Silicon Valley startups. There is a culture
Speaker 1: of rapid growth. So what would you do to address that? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's tricky because it's systemic. Silicon Valley is often
Speaker 1: funded by venture capital dollars, and that's where the growth
Speaker 1: had all costs come from. Because again, these are businesses.
Speaker 1: You know, it's very common within a tech company to
Speaker 1: also call people who use your product users, like that's
Speaker 1: just the thing. And so I think that also, like
Speaker 1: us reducing us reducing people at the end of the
Speaker 1: line to users also serves to abstract that there's a
Speaker 1: harsh reality to the kind of end experience of these products.
Speaker 1: Makes sense. Healing a question for you. I'd love to
Speaker 1: hear you just talk a little bit more about how
Speaker 1: class income play into health issues. For instance, it feels
Speaker 1: like inherently there may be an unmet opportunity for new
Speaker 1: to reach out to a more diverse set of people
Speaker 1: to begin with, if they, you know, really want to
Speaker 1: build a healthier world for everybody. Yeah, I mean, what
Speaker 1: does strike me about news branding is it it's extremely whitewash,
Speaker 1: and you can see just from the onboarding the graphics
Speaker 1: they use that it's meant for a very narrow demographic
Speaker 1: and that really is in conflict with their mission of
Speaker 1: a healthier world or as many people as possible, you know.
Speaker 1: But you know, in my experience it's just working in
Speaker 1: a couple of different settings all around New York, we
Speaker 1: ignore so many of the systems that impact people's health
Speaker 1: and just keep laying it back on to the individual
Speaker 1: and saying you're just not eating well enough, when really
Speaker 1: we're leaving out sort of just to name a few,
Speaker 1: you know, employment status, how many people are you feeding
Speaker 1: off of your paycheck? How are you getting to work?
Speaker 1: And the other thing that comes to mind for me
Speaker 1: is just how much bias exists in the medical community.
Speaker 1: I'm including the dietetics field, the field that I work in.
Speaker 1: If someone is coming in in a larger body, there's
Speaker 1: an automatic assumption that they're not healthy before a provider
Speaker 1: can even check a single vital and so you know,
Speaker 1: this is it's all wrapped up, and I think when
Speaker 1: we talk about health, we really really have to be
Speaker 1: including that, including racial bias too, in terms of how
Speaker 1: much we believe people are in pain when they say
Speaker 1: they are, or how much do we believe them when
Speaker 1: they say they eat vegetables. I think there's just a
Speaker 1: lot of bias that gets integrated into the healthcare process
Speaker 1: um that we have to be really honest about. That
Speaker 1: brings up another thing for me, which I'd love to
Speaker 1: hear either of you have an opinion about. You know,
Speaker 1: it's a really hard thing as I think about it,
Speaker 1: but I was watching Bill Maher talk about it the
Speaker 1: other day. There's the body positivity movement, which seems like
Speaker 1: a really good thing, just helping people feel better about
Speaker 1: where they're at physically. At the same time, there are
Speaker 1: real implications, like health implications for obesity, and we also
Speaker 1: have created a a system where if you are lower income,
Speaker 1: it is much harder to find and be able to
Speaker 1: afford healthy food. And so it's like there's this vortex
Speaker 1: of forces all in opposition to one another, Like where
Speaker 1: does body positivity meet the medical need to a void obesity?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? How do you how do
Speaker 1: you adjudicate that? You know, the obesity crisis. It sounds
Speaker 1: scary when you talk about it, but really what we
Speaker 1: know through the research is that we actually cannot draw
Speaker 1: a causal relationship between weight status and health outcomes. Things
Speaker 1: are correlated, I'm not saying they aren't. In the research,
Speaker 1: we're always looking at correlation verse causation, because that's really
Speaker 1: where we can understand true relationships and how to improve
Speaker 1: the health outcome. And so when we talk about the
Speaker 1: obesity epidemic, it continues to perpetuate this idea that it's
Speaker 1: about losing weight when we really want to acknowledge that
Speaker 1: there's no single disease that someone in a larger body
Speaker 1: gets that someone in a smaller body doesn't get. People
Speaker 1: in smaller bodies get high blood pressure, they get cancer,
Speaker 1: they have strokes. This so absolutely exactly, So I really
Speaker 1: feel it's important like to pull back on that, but don't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and if forgive me if I'm wrong about this, but
Speaker 1: maybe I've been brainwashed, Like I have the strong impression
Speaker 1: that people who are to use the term obese are
Speaker 1: at higher risk for some of those things like diabetes.
Speaker 1: Is that not true or is that true? What we
Speaker 1: do know is that they can manage their diabetes and
Speaker 1: they can improve um the way there condition shows up
Speaker 1: in their body in ways that don't necessarily lead to
Speaker 1: the weight loss that they're told they need to achieve.
Speaker 1: You know, we could be talking about gentle movement, we
Speaker 1: could be talking about stress reduction, medication management, and eating.
Speaker 1: But if we were to frame it like if you
Speaker 1: just were to lose twenty pounds, I'm pretty sure your
Speaker 1: blood suckers would even out. This is not helpful language
Speaker 1: to the person who's trying to manage their condition, and
Speaker 1: it doesn't really give them the tangible information to take
Speaker 1: control or feel empowered. As I think about that, it
Speaker 1: maybe it's about essentially the value exchange between them and
Speaker 1: its customers that feels off. It's like Noon could be
Speaker 1: doing more to add value for people beyond just helping
Speaker 1: them count calories and lose a few pounds, right, They
Speaker 1: really could transform the relationship that people have with food
Speaker 1: and with their bodies. But they're not really doing that yet.
Speaker 1: And my hunch would be that they're not doing that
Speaker 1: because maybe they haven't figured out a way for that
Speaker 1: to serve their bottom line of making money and growing,
Speaker 1: and maybe there's an opportunity just to add like for
Speaker 1: Noon to not just give information but also offer support
Speaker 1: as they're attempting to do right now at their newon
Speaker 1: coaches because just as many people who have attempted a diet,
Speaker 1: I'm guessing that's the same number of people who have
Speaker 1: been burned by a diet and are looking for other
Speaker 1: ways to connect with food and people who have gone
Speaker 1: through similar experiences them. So perhaps it's an opportunity to
Speaker 1: be UM kind of like a like a support network
Speaker 1: where you could, I don't know, create a community in
Speaker 1: his innocence UM. So it's not just information exchange, but
Speaker 1: as connected to each other. Yeah, I think there could
Speaker 1: be valid that's interesting. Yeah, Okay, So are there any
Speaker 1: other questions or ideas or topics that we have not
Speaker 1: touched on that you think our listeners should should know about.
Speaker 1: The one thing that I think when I reported on
Speaker 1: newm that stuck out to me was the sort of
Speaker 1: tactics they were using, at least for me, felt very
Speaker 1: triggering for someone who struggled in my adolescence and beyond
Speaker 1: with an eating disorder and disordered eating. I felt a
Speaker 1: little like, oh, it must just be me. When I
Speaker 1: first tried the app and then I started to report
Speaker 1: on it months later, and going through the app store
Speaker 1: reviews and seeing so many folks echo the experience that
Speaker 1: I felt when I tested it out, or even going
Speaker 1: so far as to say like this triggered, like this
Speaker 1: started and needing disorder. I think that those apper views
Speaker 1: are really alarming, big red flag. I was really pleasantly
Speaker 1: surprised to see when I went through the onboarding today
Speaker 1: that they now screen for. They asked you if you
Speaker 1: actively have an eating disorder. My my other idea, and
Speaker 1: I think it's a quick fix, is just also screening
Speaker 1: for anyone with a history of an eating disorder. Agreed? Okay,
Speaker 1: So on this show, we end every every session with
Speaker 1: a tool that we call the BS Index, and the
Speaker 1: way it works is it goes from zero to a hundred,
Speaker 1: zero being the best, zero bs on being the worst.
Speaker 1: BS so on a scale of zero to a hundred
Speaker 1: in terms of New really living its purpose to help
Speaker 1: as many people as possible live healthier lives through behavior change.
Speaker 1: What BS score would we give New I'll ask you
Speaker 1: to go first. Yeah, oh gosh, I know I'm going
Speaker 1: to be pretty tough on them. I would I would
Speaker 1: give them like an um uh, just because I think
Speaker 1: most of as we've talked about, it just sounds like
Speaker 1: they're trying to make money, and they have not been
Speaker 1: that creative in terms of a way to make money.
Speaker 1: I mean, I give them a couple of points credit
Speaker 1: because they do try to do it. I have an
Speaker 1: educational component, but I just think they actually weaponize that
Speaker 1: further into saying if you change this, then you would
Speaker 1: just eat less. So I think they're pretty full of it. Okay, Taylor, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I have to be tough to and be
Speaker 1: somewhere in the nineties. I'll give them like a ninety four.
Speaker 1: When I think about a lot with new is that
Speaker 1: people wanting to take control of their health and wait
Speaker 1: is not a bad thing. I think that for many
Speaker 1: people it can improve their mental health, it can improve
Speaker 1: their actual health like physical health. So I would never
Speaker 1: fault people for using it. For certain people, it might
Speaker 1: be delivering on the promise, which is why I would
Speaker 1: give them a couple of points. But I think as
Speaker 1: a company they have a lot of things to work on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: great story, they just need to do it right and
Speaker 1: they're not doing it yet. So I think those scores
Speaker 1: are I mean, they're tough, but they're fair. Okay. I
Speaker 1: want to thank you both for being on the show today.
Speaker 1: This was a great conversation, thank you. Definitely alright, folks,
Speaker 1: it's time for Noon to officially step on the BS scale.
Speaker 1: On the one hand, they do take a more holistic
Speaker 1: approach to weight loss that some people find genuinely helpful.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, we still live in a world
Speaker 1: that values thinness, and instead of changing that conversation, Noon
Speaker 1: is profiting from and in some cases, exacerbating the insecurities
Speaker 1: of the people who use it. You heard our two
Speaker 1: panelists give new really high scores, while dr Ogden gave
Speaker 1: it a more diplomatic forty. And there's one more opinion
Speaker 1: to consider, Hi, TI. If I were reading NEWM on
Speaker 1: the B S Scale, I'd say the food portion tracking
Speaker 1: of the app definitely changed my relationship to food for
Speaker 1: the worst while I was using it. But the mindfulness
Speaker 1: and the CBT portion and the slowing down when I
Speaker 1: eat and realizing why I'm eating what I'm eating if
Speaker 1: it's because I'm stressed, I really liked. So if I
Speaker 1: were giving them a B S score, I would give
Speaker 1: them a sixty five because I did learn a lot
Speaker 1: of good things on there, But ultimately it was detrimental
Speaker 1: for my mental health. I was really caught off guard
Speaker 1: by her reaction. Haileyway into this with an open mind,
Speaker 1: but also with a healthy skepticism. We are called calling
Speaker 1: bullshit after all, and still was profoundly impacted by going
Speaker 1: through the new process and another factor in the final
Speaker 1: BS score. In August, NEWM announced several changes. They've increased
Speaker 1: their calorie flexibility and done away with the red food rating,
Speaker 1: making all previously red foods orange and saying that quote
Speaker 1: changing the color signifying high density foods to orange is
Speaker 1: just as intuitive for our numbers, but doesn't carry the
Speaker 1: same emotional or cultural influence as the color red. They've
Speaker 1: also added a new feature that allows NEWM users to
Speaker 1: manually change their daily calories to meet the needs of
Speaker 1: a more diverse population, and they've become less rigid about
Speaker 1: daily weigh ins instead encouraging more flexibility around the scale.
Speaker 1: To me, all of this says that new really listens
Speaker 1: to their customers and welcomes change, but the current experience
Speaker 1: still focuses too much on weight and too little on
Speaker 1: the attributes they claim to value in their purpose health,
Speaker 1: wellness and behavior change. So I'm giving now a score
Speaker 1: of sixty four that puts new in our red zone
Speaker 1: on the BS index, the zone where we believe it's
Speaker 1: already harming their reputation and will eventually harm their business.
Speaker 1: Saves you Young and Artem Petakov. If either of you
Speaker 1: ever want to come on the show to discuss anything
Speaker 1: we've touched on today, please know that you both have
Speaker 1: an open invitation. And if you're starting a purpose led
Speaker 1: business or thinking about beginning the journey of transformation to
Speaker 1: become one, here are three things you can take away
Speaker 1: from today's episode. One, if you're a weight loss business,
Speaker 1: say it, and if you don't say it, don't be it.
Speaker 1: NOOM claims its purpose is to help as many people
Speaker 1: as possible live healthier lives through behavior change. Great purpose,
Speaker 1: but a massive amount of the current new experience is
Speaker 1: devoted to weight loss. Not great. Two. Once you've decided
Speaker 1: what your purposes, be an activist. Beyond passively changing the
Speaker 1: app experience. There's an opportunity for Newon to lead a
Speaker 1: huge shift in our culture by getting busy educating people
Speaker 1: about where real health comes from. Three. Money is important.
Speaker 1: If your company is a body, then money is like blood.
Speaker 1: Without it, you won't make it. But when it comes
Speaker 1: to money, be long term, greedy, trying to maximize your
Speaker 1: profitability in the short term is a playbook long followed
Speaker 1: by Silicon Valley vcs that we're now discovering has some
Speaker 1: deeply toxic side effects. Noom needs to be patient and
Speaker 1: build a real health company. As an entrepreneur, you need
Speaker 1: to be patient too. I want to give a really
Speaker 1: special thank you to our very own Haley Pascalites, who
Speaker 1: was willing to thoroughly document her personal experience here. Haley,
Speaker 1: You're a shining star and we appreciate you. If this
Speaker 1: episode gave you a healthy appetite for detecting more bs,
Speaker 1: subscribe to the Calling Bullshit podcast on the I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to people
Speaker 1: speaking to your ears. Please take a minute to rate
Speaker 1: us on iTunes and let us know what you think
Speaker 1: of the show. More reviews help more people find us,
Speaker 1: and thanks to our production team Hannah Beale, Amanda Ginsburg,
Speaker 1: d s Moss, Hailey Pascalites, Parker Silzer, and Basil Soaper.
Speaker 1: Calling Bullshit was created by co Collective and it's hosted
Speaker 1: by Me Time onto you. Thanks for listening.