Oprah Winfrey is leaving WeightWatchers board and giving away all her stock at critical weight loss moment

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For all of the promise associated with new weight loss drugs such as Novo Nordisk's Wegovy and Eli Lilly's Zepbound in treating obesity, there's a very big risk printed right on the label at the requirement of the FDA: patients should be prescribed these so-called GLP-1 drugs only in combination with, not as a replacement for, diet and exercise programs.

The boom in these drugs — with more poised to enter the pharmacy market and the employer-based insurers still in the early days of adding coverage for workers — is just getting started. Does that make it the greatest opportunity a diminished WeightWatchers has seen in a long time to reinvigorate its business model, or an existential threat unlike any it has faced in its history as obesity is treated more like a chronic disease requiring medicine?

When WW CEO Sima Sistani — who was named to the inaugural CNBC Changemakers list on Wednesday — made the acquisition of Sequence, now WeightWatchers Clinic, last March to get the company into the clinicals business, she made a move that the company needed.

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Even Wall Street analysts skeptical of WW's stock chart and a market cap that is currently dwarfed by outstanding debt roughly five times its valuation — though not coming due for several years yet — agree that Sistani pulled the trigger at the right time on the right kind of business. Having a link to the weight-loss drug prescription market is a must. But will Americans trust the most iconic brand in the legacy weight-loss