Oprah Winfrey embraces new weight-loss drug, talks misconceptions
Oprah Winfrey openly discussed why she decided to start using medication to help her lose weight.
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Oprah Winfrey is opening up about her weight loss journey in a new book, sharing how she overcame the “shame of not being able to manage my weight.”
“Enough” (out now from Simon & Schuster) is a collaboration between Winfrey and Dr. Ania M. Jastreboff, an endocrinologist and professor at the Yale School of Medicine. Jastreboff, who has been studying obesity for nearly 20 years, shares context and research about the disease, diet fads and weight loss drugs.
“Recognizing once and for all that obesity is not a moral failing, that it’s a chronic, relapsing disease – that has been life-changing for me. I did not get the memo 10 years ago, but now I know and I want to spread that information to as many people as I can,” Winfrey writes.
Oprah acknowledges role in ‘shame’ of diet culture
As long as she’s been a household name, Winfrey has been open about her weight – though it wasn’t by choice at first. In “Enough,” Winfrey recalls “one of the most humiliating moments of her life” when Joan Rivers asked her how she gained weight on The Tonight Show in 1985. From there, Winfrey became “a running joke.”
“David Letterman made fun of me for an entire year,” Winfrey writes in “Enough.”
In 1988, Winfrey tugged a red wagon filled with 67 pounds of fat across the stage of her show. She was showing viewers how much weight she had lost, but she also told them about the extreme dieting lengths she went to.
Now, she calls that moment one of her “biggest regrets.”
“I want to acknowledge that I have been a steadfast participant in the diet culture that contributed to some of this shame. Through the magazine, through the talk show for twenty-five years, through online channels – I’ve been a major contributor to it,” Winfrey writes.
“It sent a message to the people watching that starving yourself with a liquid diet was a standard – that neither I nor anybody else could uphold,” Winfrey writes.
Oprah says medication helped quiet weight ‘shame’ and ‘food noise’
Winfrey also hasn’t shied away from sharing her experience taking GLP-1s. Because GLP-1s were first used among diabetics (the World Health Organization now recommends them for obesity), Winfrey worried at first she’d be taking the drugs away from those who need them most, she writes in the book. She started the medication when she recognized that obesity isn’t about a lack of discipline or willpower, but a medical condition to be treated.
She says the medication has helped her quiet the “food noise,” which Jastreboff explains in the book as “that relentless voice in your head urging, no, demanding that you eat another cookie or chip even after you’ve finished the whole bag” or “constantly distracted by trying not to eat.”
“This is what people without obesity felt like all their lives,” Winfrey writes.
Winfrey has previously credited GLP-1s for more than just weight loss – she’s said it’s helped her strengthen her relationship with her longtime partner Stedman Graham, given her more energy and helped her consume less alcohol.
“Whatever your path, though, all I ask is that we stop the shaming of others’ choices,” Winfrey writes.
Clare Mulroy is USA TODAY’s Books Reporter, where she covers buzzy releases, chats with authors and dives into the culture of reading. Find her on Instagram, subscribe to our weekly Books newsletter or tell her what you’re reading at [email protected].
