Leave Oprah alone.
Yes, Oprah Winfrey is in the news again – in this case, for her decision to sell her stake in WW International WW,
(otherwise known as WeightWatchers) and exit the company’s board of directors. The decision came after Winfrey announced, to notable backlash, that she was taking a weight-loss drug to help her in her long battle to shed a few pounds and keep them off, as well as hiking, drinking plenty of water and other methods.
The company’s shares fell following the news.
The issue was largely that Winfrey had previously said that using such a drug was “the easy way out.” And indeed, as the public face of a company that touted a more traditional diet-based approach to fighting obesity, one could understand why Winfrey might have made such a remark.
But now she was being labeled a hypocrite on social media for saying otherwise. And surely some saw Winfrey’s announcement as opportunistic and self-serving given that it followed WW’s acquisition of Sequence, a company that provides access to popular fat-busting drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy NVO.
In any case, Winfrey was bound to face some criticism if only for the fact that many see the new wave of drugs as lazy people’s solution to losing weight. It’s the whole why-don’t-you-have-willpower-anymore thing? stigma that has always been part of the weight loss debate.
It’s unclear if and how any of this may have played a role in Winfrey’s decision to leave WW. Winfrey released a statement, saying, “I look forward to continuing to advise and partner with WeightWatchers and CEO Sima Sistani to elevate the conversation about recognizing obesity as a chronic condition, working to reduce stigma, and advocating for equity in Health”.
But having spent my entire adult life dealing with a weight problem, I go back to what I said above: leave Oprah alone.
“It’s never fun being fat”
It’s never fun being fat. It drains you physically. It subjects you to all sorts of verbal and emotional abuse: vulgar comments from strangers in a bar, mocking glances from airplane passengers when you try to squeeze into your assigned seat.
And perhaps worst of all, it leaves you forever thinking it’s all your fault and forces you to search for a solution of your own forever. Most of the time, you don’t want to do things the “easy” way because you want to show the world that you can beat this thing.
Until you finally realize that it’s not, well, that easy.
At my heaviest, about 15 years ago, I weighed almost 300 pounds. and had more or less crossed the line into the “morbidly obese” category. Now, at 60, I have lost about 200 pounds. I am happier and healthier, although I recognize that my journey is far from over. Obesity is a chronic disease and must be treated as such, medical experts are increasingly emphasizing.
But to get to where I am, I also had to stop thinking that relying on my sheer will, following any of the diets I tried, could be the solution. In my case, this involved two key decisions.
“Being fat means living with a constant mirror, real or imagined, in front of you, asking, “Why am I like this?”“
First, I had weight loss surgery, specifically the gastric band (or LAP-Band) procedure which limits the amount of food you can easily consume. This got me about halfway there. And when new weight loss drugs came on the market, I followed the advice of a doctor and took one, namely Mounjaro, and abandoned the others.
How can I connect my story to Winfrey’s? As I said, I’ve long been skeptical of solutions that don’t align with certain preconceptions about the right way to lose weight. But it’s also because I know how confusing it all is: Being fat means living with a constant mirror, real or imagined, facing you, asking, “Why am I like this?”
I’m hardly alone, of course. Oprah and I have a lot of people on our side. (For the record, nearly 40 percent of U.S. adults are obese.) And I suspect most of us live with some sense of shame — the same shame Winfrey talked about when she revealed she was taking a weight-loss drug after years of struggle (she has yet to reveal which one she was prescribed).
And it’s all made worse by a society that questions whether our weight loss is “earned” if it comes through medications.
Just listen to the story of Anne Ahola Ward, a 45-year-old resident of Austin, Texas. Like me, Ward has struggled with a weight problem her whole life, but she has lost 63 pounds in the last year after she was prescribed Wegovy. However, she feels the stinging judgment of others in her decision to take the drug route.
“How are the choices I made anyone’s business?” she told me.
Plus, there’s important context here: Most of us who struggle to lose weight aren’t doing it so we can enter some beauty pageant. We are literally fighting for our lives, given all the medical issues – heart disease, cancer, etc. – associated with obesity. Slimming drugs therefore become lifesavers.
Dr. Michael Glickman, a Washington, D.C.-based doctor who specializes in obesity medicine, said we need to look at weight loss drugs the same way we look at cancer treatments, such as radiation or chemotherapy . What is needed is necessary.
“You wouldn’t say to a friend with cancer, ‘Why don’t you go out and exercise more?’” Glickman told me.
The irony of all this is that weight-loss drugs should not be seen so much as a solution, but rather as a tool.
That is, you don’t magically lose pounds when you gain them. But they help reduce appetite – I can certainly confirm this – so it’s easier to maintain a good diet. Ultimately, you still have to work, which typically means following a sensible eating plan, like the one promoted by WeightWatchers, and getting some exercise.
As Winfrey herself explained last year about her regime: “It’s not a thing. That’s all.”
We respect Winfrey for finally finding that “it” and being honest about her weight loss journey. I, for one, wish her nothing but the best.