A Conversation with Jenny Craig (1995)

A Conversation with Jenny Craig, hosted by Dick Van Patten.
Jenny Craig, Inc., often known simply as Jenny Craig, is an American weight loss, weight management, and nutrition company. The company has more than 700 weight management centers in Australia, the United States, Canada, and New Zealand. The program combines individual weight management counseling with a menu of frozen meals and other foods which are distributed through its centers or shipped directly to clients.

Richard Vincent Van Patten (December 9, 1928 – June 23, 2015) was an American actor, comedian, businessman, and animal welfare advocate, whose career spanned seven decades of television. He was best known for his role as patriarch Tom Bradford on the ABC television comedy-drama Eight Is Enough.

Van Patten began work as a child actor and was successful on the New York stage, appearing in more than a dozen plays as a teenager. He worked in radio, on Duffy's Tavern. He later starred in numerous television roles including the long-running CBS television series, "Mama" and Young Doctor Malone. Later, he would star or co-star in many feature films, including Charly, Mel Brooks's Robin Hood: Men in Tights and Spaceballs, and Charlton Heston's Soylent Green. Van Patten was the founder of Natural Balance Pet Foods and National Guide Dog Month.

Jenny Craig and her husband, Sidney Craig founded Jenny Craig, Inc. in 1983 in Melbourne, Australia and began operations in the United States in 1985. The company expanded rapidly after entering the U.S., opening 46 locations by 1987 as well as 114 in foreign countries. In 1991, the company underwent an IPO, generating $73.5 million in funding.

In 1998 Jenny Craig was operating 643 company-owned and 138 franchised centers in 45 states, as well as in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and Puerto Rico. The revenues had fallen from $401 million in 1996 to $352 million.

Throughout the 1990s, the company's share price declined as it ran into a series of financial troubles involving weight loss drugs, employee training, and costly leases before eventually being delisted from the New York Stock Exchange in August 2001. Jenny Craig stock then traded over the counter.

In 2002, Jenny Craig, Inc., was acquired by MidOcean Partners, a New York and London-based private equity investment firm, and ACI Capital, a New York-based private investment firm. On 19 June 2006, they announced the signing of a definitive agreement to sell the company to Nestlé in a transaction valued at approximately $600 million. The company was operated as part of Nestlé Nutrition. On 19 November 2013, Jenny Craig Inc. was purchased by North Castle Partners for an undisclosed amount. In April 2019, H.I.G. Capital acquired the Jenny Craig weight management business from North Castle Partners.

In 2008, YouTube personality Shane Dawson and approximately 6 other Jenny Craig employees including his mother and brother, were fired from their jobs for uploading a sketch to his YouTube channel. In 2013, Dawson wrote a comedy pilot about his experiences there and sold the script to NBC.

In March 2018, the company reportedly pulled its advertisements from The Ingraham Angle as a result of her cyberbullying David Hogg.

In 2019, H.I.G. Capital, a global private equity firm, acquired Jenny Craig for an undisclosed amount. In October 2019, Walgreens announced that it would begin offering Jenny Craig weight loss services at approximately 100 locations beginning in January 2020.

According to a systematic review, overweight and obese adults enrolled in Jenny Craig after 12 months had 4.9% more weight loss than subjects in a control/education group (receiving no intervention, printed materials only, health education curriculum, or 3 sessions with a provider) or behavioral counseling group.