Give Your Favorite Recipes a ``Make Over'' With WeightWatchers.com's Online Recipe Builder;...

Business Editors & Health/Medical Writers

NEW YORK--(BW HealthWire)--May 7, 2002

Now you can stick to your diet and partake in those homemade cinnamon buns, that chicken Marsala with red-skinned mashed potatoes or any other tasty recipe you can create.

All you have

Perfect for adventurous cooks and available to subscribers at www.WeightWatchers.com, the online Recipe Builder lets users incorporate all of their favorite recipes into their diets by quickly and accurately assigning them a POINTS(R) value. Users simply input the ingredients and the portion sizes and the Recipe Builder instantly performs the calculations!

The POINTS Food System is patented and proprietary to Weight Watchers(R). Every food is given a POINTS value based on three nutritional factors: calories, fat and fiber. Dieters are assigned a daily POINTS range based on their current weight and by staying within their range, should safely lose weight.

"You don't have to subject yourself to an endless regimen of diet bars or shakes in order to lose weight and eat healthfully," said Leslie Fink, MS, RD and content nutritionist for WeightWatchers.com. "Weight Watchers encourages people to positively change their eating behavior. With WeightWatchers.com's new Recipe Builder and other online tools, it is easy to make every favorite dish a healthier and lower-fat feast."

How To Give Your Recipe A Makeover

If your family's favorite recipe is just too high in POINTS, you can use the Recipe Builder to give it a healthy make over. By experimenting with different ingredients, substituting low-fat versions of foods, lessening portion sizes or changing cooking methods, subscribers can create a more healthful dish without sacrificing flavor.

For example, if a subscriber wants to make over her grandmother's famous eggplant Parmigiana, WeightWatchers.com offers the following tips:

-- Recipe Search provides access to a database of over 800 recipes that
WeightWatchers.com's in-house registered dietitians have reviewed and approved.
Users can search by meal type, ingredient or POINTS value

-- Recipe Renovations are weekly recipes posted on the site that
WeightWatchers.com dietitians have transformed to make lower in POINTS, and
therefore low in saturated fat, high in fiber and nutrient-rich. Each renovated
recipe has been carefully developed and tested to let dieters dine like
gourmets while still losing weight. In addition, Recipe Renovations offers
important tips for making over personal recipes

-- Community Recipe Swap is an online message board where users can search for
and download recipes with POINTS values that are submitted by other
WeightWatchers.com users in addition to posting their own favorites

By incorporating these simple changes, this user will have transformed an 11 POINTS meal into a 3 POINTS meal! Not bad considering a typical POINTS range is between 22 and 27 POINTS a day.

Once the final recipe has been saved, the user can print it out, e-mail it to a friend, or save it in her or his very own WeightWatchers.com Recipe Box alongside favorite WeightWatchers.com recipes. Since the Recipe Builder is completely integrated with all of the tools on WeightWatchers.com, users can also add their own recipes to their online journal.

In addition to the Recipe Builder tool, WeightWatchers.com also offers its subscribers access to a Recipe Search tool. All site visitors can access WeightWatchers.com's vibrant community recipe swap and enjoy original Recipe Renovations content for free

-- Recipe Search provides access to a database of over 800 recipes that
WeightWatchers.com's in-house registered dietitians have reviewed and approved.
Users can search by meal type, ingredient or POINTS value

-- Recipe Renovations are weekly recipes posted on the site that
WeightWatchers.com dietitians have transformed to make lower in POINTS, and
therefore low in saturated fat, high in fiber and nutrient-rich. Each renovated
recipe has been carefully developed and tested to let dieters dine like
gourmets while still losing weight. In addition, Recipe Renovations offers
important tips for making over personal recipes

-- Community Recipe Swap is an online message board where users can search for
and download recipes with POINTS values that are submitted by other
WeightWatchers.com users in addition to posting their own favorites

The online recipe tools are but one feature of WeightWatchers.com. The premier online weight-loss site offers the most sophisticated online resources to aid individuals in achieving their specific weight-loss goals. All visitors have access to many free resources such as daily articles, recipes, quizzes, success stories and WeightWatchers.com's award-winning community.

WeightWatchers.com offers weight-loss help to both Weight Watchers Meetings Members and dieters who can't join Meetings. Subscription products include Weight Watchers eTools, which makes following the Winning Points plan easier and more convenient for Meetings Members with Internet access, and Weight Watchers Online for dieters who cannot join Meetings.

Weight Watchers believes that Meetings are the best way to lose weight. Research has shown that group support tends to help people lose weight more effectively. Consumers can log onto the Web site to learn more about Weight Watchers approach to weight loss or conveniently locate a Meeting through the Meeting Finder.

Note to media: Courtesy trials of Weight Watchers eTools and Weight Watchers Online are available upon request. Please contact press@weightwatchers.com.

About WeightWatchers.com, Inc.

WeightWatchers.com, Inc., the online experience for the leading global weight loss brand, offers weight loss help for Meetings members and self-help dieters alike. The WeightWatchers.com mission is to expand, online, Weight Watchers 40 years of healthy weight loss success.

Headquartered in New York City and founded in 1999, WeightWatchers.com, Inc. is an affiliate and licensee of Weight Watchers International, Inc. (NYSE:WTW), and runs the Weight Watchers website located at http://www.WeightWatchers.com. WeightWatchers.com won the Cyber Lion award for best community at the 2001 Cannes Advertising Festival.