“For 25 years, making fun of my weight was the national sport.” Retired since 2011 as a television host of daily morning shows, every time Oprah Winfrey returns to host a program she gives a lot of talk. One of the last occasions was for the controversial interview with Meghan Markle and Prince Harry, and last night she returned to the small screen for a special about weight loss.
In Shame, Blame and the Weight Loss Revolution, broadcast on the ABC free-to-air network, the presenter addressed her own experiences from when she was close to obesity some time ago. The concern that the television star showed for her weight, for his own and for that of the viewers, has raised as many applause as criticism.
“I wanted to make this special for the more than 100 million people in the United States and for the 1 billion people in the world who suffer from obesity. Maybe it’s you or maybe it’s someone you love,” he said in the program. The highlight of Winfrey’s foray into television is that he supported the use of drugs to lose weight, something that years ago he had described as “the easy way out.” He called for getting rid of the “stigma” of using weight loss drugs.
“Throughout my life I never dreamed that we would talk about medications that would give hope to people who, like me, have been struggling with being overweight or obese for years. I bring up this conversation with the hope that we can begin to free ourselves from the stigma, from shame and judgment, that we stop shaming other people for being overweight or how they choose to lose or not lose weight. And, most importantly, that we stop shaming ourselves,” the presenter defended.
Nor did he forget those who feel “healthy and happy.” “There is room for all points of view. Let’s stop shaming and blaming. There is no place for it,” she defended. About the days when she felt embarrassed by her weight, she said that she felt “like a fat cow” and refused to be photographed if she was going to show off her body. “I’ve been blamed and shamed, and I’ve blamed and shamed myself,” she explained.
Winfrey revealed that she took weight loss drugs in People magazine in 2023. She then said that she used a holistic approach that includes regular exercise and other lifestyle adjustments. He said the weight struggle “took up five decades of space in my brain, yo-yoing and wondering why I can’t just conquer this, believing that willpower was my failing.”
