Margaret Miles-Bramwell OBE or Margaret Glynis Whittaker (1948 – 2 February 2025) was the British founder of Slimming World and its charity SMILES. She was adopted by a couple and brought up in Derbyshire. Pregnancy ended her time at Grammar School and she was a married mother by sixteen. She co-founded Slimming World and it grew to have thousands of branches. She later bought a yacht company, a club in Mallorca and was declared Business Woman of the Year.
Life
Miles-Bramwell was born in London and she was adopted whilst a baby. Her adopted parents were Emma Selina and Samuel Birch and they brought her up in South Normanton in Derbyshire. She went to grammar school but she was obliged to leave when she became pregnant aged fifteen. The child was called Claire and Margaret married Claire's father, Roy Miles, in 1964 when she was 16.[1] She worked in an office, she worked in shops which included stacking supermarket shelves and managing a furniture store.
Miles-Bramwell and a friend started a slimming group in a church hall in Alfreton because she was concerned for her own weight. By the end of that year there were 25 different groups in her county and in nearby Nottinghamshire. She was the leader but more like an elder than a boss.[2]