Oprah says she’s taking a weight-loss drug and ‘done with the shame’

In 1988, Oprah Winfrey dragged a red wagon filled with grease across the stage of her television show to represent the 67 pounds she said she had lost on a liquid diet. She stopped dieting just a few years later, but her fluctuating weight and the prejudice she experienced as a result have remained frequent topics of conversation for both Ms. Winfrey and the media in the decades since.

Now Ms Winfrey, 69, has rejoined the diet debate, revealing on Wednesday that she had started taking medication to control her weight. Her announcement comes as demand has soared for new drugs such as Ozempic, Wegovy and Zepbound, which can help people lose weight partly by suppressing appetite.

“The fact that there will be a medically approved prescription in my lifetime to manage weight and stay healthier feels like relief, like redemption, like a gift, and not something to hide behind and be ridiculed for again,” she says. told People Magazine. Ms Winfrey said she decided to take a weight-loss drug afterwards organizing a panel discussionwhich she said had rid her of the myth that weight depends solely on one’s self-control.

“I realized that I had been blaming myself all these years for being overweight, and I feel like no amount of willpower can control it,” said Ms. Winfrey, who did not name the drug she was taking. A representative for Ms. Winfrey did not respond to a request for comment.

Over the past year, Ozempic and drugs like it have turned the conventional wisdom around willpower, weight and stigma on its head. Perhaps no one embodies the cultural conversation surrounding these issues more prominently than Ms. Winfrey.

“We can see Oprah as a crystallization of a broader struggle that many of us have with our bodies, with weight going up and down, when in reality our bodies are simply comfortable at a higher weight than is considered socially acceptable,” she said. Kate Manne. , associate professor of philosophy at Cornell University and author of a forthcoming book on anti-fat bias.

That tension underscores how complex it is to treat obesity, said Dr. Melanie Jay, director of the NYU Langone Comprehensive Program on Obesity, who recently appeared on the panel with Ms. Winfrey.

“No one in the entire world has shown that he is more motivated to lose weight, that he has the tools to do so, and yet he has publicly lost and gained weight and really struggled with it all his life, ” said Dr. Jay. “This really shows how obesity is a disease that needs to be managed, and the shame part of it isn’t helpful.”

Ms. Winfrey’s public proclamations on weight loss reflect national conversations about diet culture, the body-positivity movement that emerged in response and, now, society’s cautious embrace of weight-loss drugs, said Adrienne Bitar, an American studies lecturer at the Cornell University and the author of “Diet and the Disease of Civilization.”

“Her weight loss journey parallels all American dieting experiences,” said Dr. Bitar.

Now Ms. Winfrey has joined the many people turning to a new class of medications used for weight management. As these drugs have become more popular, the diet industry in general has focused on them. Most notable is WW International, the company formerly known as Weight Watchers – which for decades proclaimed that strictly controlling your diet could lead to weight loss – announced this spring that it has acquired Sequence, a telehealth platform that provides access to medications such as Ozempic. Ms. Winfrey has invested in the company and serves on its board of directors.

In making her announcement, Ms. Winfrey said she was taking medication as a “maintenance drug.” People who start using such medications typically lose weight for the first eighteen months and then reach a plateau; when people stop taking a weight-loss drug, they tend to gain weight again. She said her doctor prescribed the medication and it was part of a broader health regimen that included walking and hydration.

Dr. Bitar suggested that Ms. Winfrey, a media pundit, most likely made the announcement to shape her own narrative rather than leave room for further speculation about her weight-loss methods. Ms Winfrey had not previously disclosed whether she had tried the drugs.

Like many female celebrities, Ms. Winfrey has been subjected to “crude, cruel reporting about her weight and health issues throughout her career,” Dr. Bitar said. In a 1985 interview on “The Tonight Show,” Joan Rivers said chastised her for gaining weight, to Mrs. Winfrey: “That shouldn’t happen to you; You are very beautiful.”

That criticism took an emotional toll, Ms. Winfrey told People. “It was a public sport for 25 years to make fun of me.”

Even now, as experts say, the evidence has never been clearer that weight loss isn’t as simple as “calories in, calories out,” some demonize the drugs as an easy way out. “There is a feeling that you would somehow be more virtuous if you lost weight the old-fashioned way, through willpower, diet, exercise and self-control,” said Dr. Male.

Ms Winfrey told People she struggled with the decision to take the medication, but eventually came around. “I am absolutely done with shaming other people and especially myself,” she said.