The Weight Loss Benefits of Apple Cider Vinegar
What this video covers
This October 2018 segment pairs Dr. Oz with diet expert and personal trainer Jen Widerstrom to discuss apple cider vinegar’s purported weight-loss benefits and, per the show, how to “properly implement” ACV into a daily routine. It is a follow-up chapter in the show’s multi-year ACV coverage, arriving four years after the 2014 “3 Healthy Ways” segment and at a moment when vinegar-based weight-loss claims were saturating wellness media.
Widerstrom, then known to television audiences from The Biggest Loser, serves as the segment’s practitioner voice, sharing her recommendations for incorporating ACV day to day. The format is the show’s standard expert-plus-host explainer: Oz frames the topic, the guest supplies the regimen, and the takeaway is positioned as practical and actionable.
Widerstrom’s “prescription,” per the broadcast: start with three teaspoons of ACV per day — one teaspoon before each meal, breakfast, lunch, and dinner — and take breaks to gauge how the body responds. (For the taste, she suggests warm water with a teaspoon of vinegar, plus cayenne pepper and lemon juice.) She calls apple cider vinegar “the Ringo Starr of the Beatles” — always there, underrated, a best-kept secret — and describes it as effective, potent, natural, and cheap. The segment also showcases audience success stories: viewers who report less bloating, more energy, and weight loss after adding vinegar to their routines, presented as testimonials rather than evidence.
The usual evidentiary caveats apply and are worth stating plainly: the clinical literature on vinegar and weight loss consists of small, short-term studies suggesting possible modest effects on satiety and post-meal glucose — not the robust evidence base that would support presenting ACV as a reliable weight-loss intervention. The segment presents Widerstrom’s recommendations as her professional advice, not as established medical consensus, and viewers should treat it accordingly.
Key points
- Diet expert and personal trainer Jen Widerstrom joins Oz to discuss ACV’s weight-loss claims and her recommendations for daily use.
- Widerstrom’s “prescription”: three teaspoons of ACV daily, one before each meal — optionally in warm water with cayenne pepper and lemon juice.
- The segment is positioned as a practical how-to: “properly implementing” apple cider vinegar into a daily routine, per the show’s framing.
- It aired October 2018, extending the show’s ACV coverage across multiple years of the vinegar trend.
- For context: evidence for ACV-driven weight loss is limited to small short-term studies; the segment’s recommendations are Widerstrom’s professional advice, not clinical consensus.
- The clip has drawn 3.5 million views, making it one of the channel’s most-watched nutrition segments.