Major PR Fail from Weight Watchers UK Over Endangered Species

To get something wrong or to inadvertently be on the wrong side of the fence for something is natural, it is human and at the end of the day everyone has the potential to be wrong or make a mistake.

What is surprising however is the public relations faux pas committed by Weight Watchers UK this week with regards to including Swordfish and Monkfish in their list of Filling & Healthy foods. Clearly this has been a mistake but the way in which this has been dealt with defies logic.

The official statement from Weight Watchers UK on their Facebook page reads:

We’ve noticed that a number of people have been posting on our page about endangered fish species, and asking why we include swordfish and monkfish in our extensive list of Filling & Healthy foods. Weight Watchers uses nutritional profiling of every possible food choice to help our members make informed healthy choices. Weight Watchers does not make recommendations or dictate to our members about ethical aspects of food sourcing.

Now I may be wrong or I may have misunderstood, but to me this suggests that they are not encouraging people to eat Swordfish or Monkfish but they are simply informing their members of how nutritional they are, in a public service sort of way. This then lead me to ask the question, on the Weight Watchers UK Facebook page if they could refer me to the pages of the Filling and Healthy Foods Guide where I could find the nutritional value of Tiger, Panda and Blue Whale. Obviously I don’t want to eat these (in the same way I don’t want to eat Swordfish or Monkfish) but I would like access to the information as Weight Watchers clearly want to keep me informed on what it healthy to eat, even though they don’t want to encourage me to actually eat it.

I did ask via the Facebook page if Weight Watchers could make an official statement to me before I posted this but such a response has not been forthcoming.

Got any thoughts on this? Please feel free to share them with me or with the Facebook Team from Weight Watchers UK.