Wal-Mart Weight-Loss Deal Donates to Charity

We hear that a vendor to Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is offering to help Tom Coughlin lose weight. For each pound Coughlin loses, the vendor will donate $1,000 to a Northwest Arkansas charity.

Coughlin is an executive vice president at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. He’s also president and CEO of the Wal-Mart Stores Division.

Coughlin has apparently been trying to lose weight, unsuccessfully, for some time.

Rexall Sundown, a company based in Boca Raton, Fla., is supplying Coughlin with its Carb Solutions products to help him trim off the pounds.

“Carb Solutions offers a variety of great, sweet-tasting, convenient, vitamin-packed, high-protein snacks and meal replacements that can help curb your cravings for sweets,” the Carb Solutions brochure states.

A representative of Rexall Sundown showed up at Wal-Mart’s Saturday meeting Nov. 4 with T-shirts for everyone in attendance. A caricature of Coughlin is pictured on the front with the words “See less of Tom.”

Rob Walton, chairman of Wal-Mart’s board of directors, reportedly offered to match the Rexall Sundown donations to charity if Coughlin can keep the weight off for six months.

We asked Rexall Sundown about the promotion, and the company referred us to Wal-Mart.

“What goes on at our Saturday morning meetings is considered confidential,” said Rob Phillips, a Wal-Mart spokesman. “Basically, what you’ve described to me is true … but I’ve been told our policy is not to comment on Saturday morning meetings.”