+ HEALTHY LIVING
Oprah Winfrey has been a cultural “influencer” for some four decades — since long before the term evolved to have its current digital and social-media meaning. But Winfrey, who turned 70 in January, has regrets about some of the ways she has used her platforms — and voiced them last month. While appearing on a WeightWatchers “Making the Shift: A New Way to Think About Weight” livestream, Winfrey — who was part of WeightWatchers board from 2016 until resigning earlier this year after disclosing in December 2023 she’d been taking a weight-loss drug — addressed both the in-studio and remote audiences about what she termed a “pivotal moment in the way we talk about and the way we think about our bodies.”
But before continuing, she decided to speak about what she feels was her own role in promoting the “diet culture” that has held so many in its grip for so long.
“I want to acknowledge that I have been a steadfast participant in this diet culture through my platforms, through the [O] magazine, through the talk show for 25 years,” she said. “I’ve been a major contributor to it. I cannot tell you how many weight-loss shows and makeovers I have done, and they have been a staple since I’ve been working in television.”
She then brought up perhaps the most memorable and/or infamous moment in her show’s history: The time in 1988 when, after losing 67 pounds on an all-liquid diet that lasted several months, she wheeled a red Radio Flyer wagon that was stacked with 67 pounds of fat to represent the weight she had lost.
“I’ve shared how that famous wagon of fat moment on the ‘Oprah’ show is one of my biggest regrets,” she said. “It sent a message that starving yourself with a liquid diet — it set a
hstandard for people watching that I nor anybody else could uphold ... I own what I’ve done and now I want to do better.”
Oprah speaks out: Noble — but was it necessary?
While it’s admirable Winfrey would offer a mea culpa for what she believes she did in propagating a negative diet culture, count me among those who don’t believe she really has anything to apologize for.
After all, she’s a product of her time. She was a groundbreaking Black woman who came up in an era during which society thought it was perfectly acceptable for prominent (white) men to ridicule women — often for cheap laughs — based on their appearance and/or physique.
Think of John Belushi’s portrayal of Elizabeth Taylor in an infamous “Saturday Night
hLive Weekend Update” skit in which Belushi, while dressed in drag, munches on a greasy chicken breast while being interviewed by anchor Bill Murray. Belushi eventually fakechokes on bones, performs a self-Heimlich maneuver, spits out the bones and continues the interview without missing a beat.
Or consider famed tennis commentator Bud Collins cruelly dubbing Martina Navratilova the “Great Wide Hope” after the young Czechoslovakian star gained weight after defecting from her homeland and being introduced to American fast food. Navratilova would, of course, eventually become a tennis legend and pioneer in bringing fitness and strength-training to women’s sports.
But back to Winfrey: Throw in her being a childhood rape survivor — which the National Sexual Violence Resource center says often contributes to eating disorders and body-image issues — and it’s no wonder that she has been