Revisiting Some of Oprah's Truly Annoying Remarks About Weight Loss and Their Impact on Her Audience

Oprah Winfrey had entered a new segment of her long-standing weight loss fascination, which was especially dreadful. The influential media mogul returned to her talk show roots with a new ABC special titled, An Oprah Special: Shame, Blame and the Weight Loss Revolution.

In this segment, she pushed for the prescription of costly weight loss drugs like Wegovy and Zepbound. As mentioned by Huff Post, Winfrey’s statement that she had taken a weight loss drug is an indication that she is not averse to that option. She had resigned from the board of WeightWatchers by February, which she had been serving for nearly ten years. As part of her special, Winfrey criticized fat stigma by encouraging viewers to "stop shaming and blaming" themselves as well as others for weight gain. Winfrey went on to say that being fat is a "disease" just like alcoholism.

“The number one thing I hope people come away with is knowing that [obesity] is a disease, and it’s in the brain,” Winfrey said. Dr. Jen Ashton, ABC News chief medical correspondent and obesity medicine physician, supported this claim, stating, “It is conclusively known that the conditions of overweight and obesity are complex, chronic disease states, not character flaws,” Ashton said. “So they should be managed accordingly.”

It was important to note that doctors could be significant perpetrators of weight stigma, with research showing they were often less likely to respect patients they deemed overweight, leading to many diagnoses being overlooked. Winfrey’s special included interviews with individuals who had taken weight loss drugs. These participants shared how the drugs helped them manage conditions like Type 2 diabetes and how miserable their lives were when they were in larger bodies due to fat stigma. Winfrey also shared her personal experiences with stigma. “I have to say that I took on the shame that the world gave to me,” Winfrey said in the special. “For 25 years, making fun of my weight was a national sport.”

Winfrey admitted that her infamous 1988 moment on The Oprah Winfrey Show, where she rolled out a red wagon containing 67 pounds of animal fat (the amount of weight she had lost), was achieved through unhealthy means. She revealed she "starved" herself for five months before the stunt. "After losing 67 pounds on a liquid diet, the next day, the very next day, I started to gain it back," she confessed.

Winfrey claimed she no longer needed to engage in extreme dieting or face stigma due to weight loss drugs. "All these years, I thought all of the people who never had to diet were just using their willpower and they were stronger than me," she said, assuming that those with thinner bodies never thought about their size or the food they ate. "But now I realize y’all weren’t even thinking about the food. It’s not that you had the willpower. You weren’t even thinking about it. You weren’t obsessing about it."

The greatest challenge was to believe that Winfrey was telling the truth about the weight loss pills. These drugs were often not affordable to many people because of their high cost, and they are not normally covered by insurance. Furthermore, the durability of the drugs was unknown. Research shows that weight loss medications can carry major side effects and, for instance, Zepbound, one of the drugs, requires permanent use to maintain weight loss, or the weight will return.

Taking weight loss drugs might have been a personal decision, but it should not be seen as "cheating". Endorsing these drugs, however, did not touch the deeper problem of weight stigma in society. Instead, it was a way for people to escape from public humiliation. Winfrey's past of backing shaky science and promoting fake products was also a matter of concern. In 2004, she introduced Dr. Oz who was later being called before the Senate subcommittee for marketing ineffective weight loss solutions.