We may receive a commission for purchases made from our links.
After spending more than two decades enduring constant criticism about her weight, Oprah Winfrey has finally decided she’s had enough. talking to the people In December 2023, the media mogul reflected on the negative conversations surrounding her body. “It’s been a public sport to make fun of me for 25 years,” she said. “The things that were said about me, that were said to me, those around me, the jokes that were told. You can’t get away with it any way today.”
It’s true that weight shaming is much less socially acceptable than it was in the 1990s. However, the fact that Winfrey continues to take on weight shaming today is a testament to the idea that people don’t fully understand the impact of their harsh words. In an article in Canadian Medical Association Journal, Angela Alberga, an assistant professor in the Department of Health, Kinesiology, and Applied Physiology at Concordia University, once explained that feeling shame about weight can cause a person to have low self-esteem, anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and instill an avoidance of exercise.
In addition, a person dealing with excess weight may have to overeat to deal with stress. In Winfrey’s case, weight shaming was also a larger problem in society. Chat with mcgill university, Jennifer Bartz, a psychology professor at the institute, admitted that watching celebrities being shamed for their weight could “increase women’s feelings that being ‘thin’ is good and being ‘obese’ is bad.” Given the enormous amount of shame Winfrey has dealt with over the years, it’s sad but also not surprising that she’s internalized some of these harmful beliefs.
Joan Rivers urged her to lose weight on national television
When Oprah Winfrey appeared on “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson” in 1985, host Joan Rivers talked about how she had won a beauty contest. When Winfrey responded that the moment occurred when she was 50 pounds lighter, Rivers interjectedly asked her why she was so overweight. After a clearly uncomfortable Winfrey attributed her weight gain to overeating, Rivers said, “You shouldn’t let that happen to you. (…) You’re a beautiful girl, and you’re single. You should lose weight” (via YouTube).
During his January 2026 appearance on “The view” The media mogul recalled how thrilled she felt after being invited onto the popular talk show in 1985, so much so that she went out and spent her salary on a pair of shoes to wear on air. However, all her happiness quickly faded when her weight became the topic of discussion. “I remember I left feeling embarrassed, but she said I could come back if I lost 15 pounds,” Winfrey recalled. “I wasn’t even bothered by it. I thought, ‘I’ve got to keep doing this, I’ve got to lose 15 pounds.’
In her 2017 book “Food, health and happiness” Winfrey said she was determined to shed £15 after the interview because it was a way for her to send a clear message that she “deserved” her success and gained people’s approval. In the aftermath, Winfrey tried crash diet after crash diet, and ended up dealing with many ups and downs. (Suffice it to say, You shouldn’t even think about crash dieting.)
Anna Wintour asked her to shed a few pounds for a Vogue cover
In an unaired clip from Anna Wintour’s May 2009 appearance on “60 Minutes,” she revealed that she made a “very nice suggestion” to Oprah Winfrey to part with some pounds for her 1998 Vogue cover (via Us Weekly). Wintour added, “I simply said you might feel more comfortable. She was a trooper!” The former Vogue editor-in-chief then shared that Winfrey was able to lose 20 pounds through a strict regimen.
Winfrey has spoken about her weight loss since then in December 2025 the people “I was just doing what the rest of the world was doing,” she continued. “I thought I proved I had willpower.” So, when Winfrey experienced weight fluctuations in the following years, she once again blamed herself for her lack of willpower.
However, experts believe that discipline and willpower are not the best solution to losing weight. In chat with tech science, Willpower is not a magic cure for obesity, said Carolina Solis Herrera, MD, chief of endocrinology at the University of Texas. She explained that some people may be more susceptible to overeating because their bodies overproduce a hormone called ghrelin, which is responsible for hunger pangs. For them, no amount of willpower can compensate for the lack of hormonal satiety signals.
In 2024, Mayo Clinic physician Donald Hensrud said likewise Mayo Clinic News Network There are many driving factors behind overeating and a sedentary lifestyle that cannot be changed simply by force of will. He believed that the trick to losing weight was to create effective and sustainable strategies.
People seem to forget that Oprah Winfrey is a victim of diet culture too
In a 1988 episode of her talk show, Oprah Winfrey brought out a red wagon containing 67 pounds of animal fat, representing the weight she had lost in the three years since her infamous conversation with Joan Rivers. However, the media mogul achieved this transformation through the Optifast diet, which is limited to 400 calories per day (via New York TimesShe was asked to eat only liquid protein for four months.
In the October 2005 issue of Oh magazine, She revealed that she regained her weight when she switched to her usual diet. During May 2024 Weight Watchers At the livestream event, Winfrey admitted that she was a supporter of diet culture and specifically apologized for promoting a liquid fasting diet that was completely unsustainable. Unfortunately, this candid admission hasn’t stopped people from continuing to shame Winfrey for participating in an important moment in diet culture.
However, it could be argued that many of these critics failed to see the enormous amount of pressure Winfrey was under in the 1990s, a time when fat shaming became increasingly normalized. One magazine of the time described her as “Dumpy, Frumpy, and Downright Lumpy” (trans the people). In an interview with People in December 2023, Winfrey shared her reaction to the headline, saying, “I didn’t feel angry. I felt sad. I felt hurt. I swallowed the shame. I accepted that it was my fault.” It’s undeniable that Winfrey applied an unrealistic standard at the time, but it’s important to remember that she was a victim of that standard herself.
I was ashamed to take GLP-1
Since Oprah Winfrey joined the ranks Media figures who have confirmed the use of GLP-1, People criticized her for taking a “shortcut” or “the easy way out” to achieve her weight loss goals. However, these critics fail to understand that what people do to achieve their health goals or feel more confident in their skin is entirely their own business. Additionally, the criticism surrounding Winfrey’s weight-loss journey represents a larger issue: the stigmatization of the GLP-1 drug.
Study 2026 in International Journal of Obesity They compared how people looked in three groups: one that lost weight through the GLP-1 drug, the second that achieved their weight loss goals through diet and exercise, and the third that did not achieve their goals. The study found that people viewed GLP-1 drug users with more negative traits (such as “lazy, undisciplined, self-absorbed, unclean, weak-willed, dirty, insecure, and slow”) compared to other groups. In addition, subjects were less likely to be associated with GLP-1 drug users than the other two groups.
During his January 2025 appearance on “Oprah Podcast” Endocrinologist Dr. Anya Jastrebov dispels the “easy way out” narrative by pointing out that obesity is a disease and that medicine is a way to treat it on a biological level. In December 2023, The celebrity, who underwent a major weight loss transformation after entering her sixties, She told People that she would not tolerate any criticism of her decision, saying, “I’m completely done with shaming others and especially myself.”
People rolled their eyes at her “obesity gene” claim.
During December 2025 the people In the interview, Oprah Winfrey shared a belief that came as a surprise to her on her weight loss journey, saying, “If you have obesity in your gene pool, I want people to know that it’s not your fault (…) Stop blaming yourself for genes and environment that you can’t control.” During his January 2026 appearance on “The view” Winfrey similarly declared that some people were more likely to overeat because of the “obesity gene” rather than because of a lack of willpower. According to her theory, food noise was further amplified in people who had the gene. Many social media commenters rolled their eyes at her comment, believing it perpetuated an old “excuse.”
However, there is actually a link between obesity and genetics. Obesity Medicine Society It is noted that the genetic causes of obesity can be divided into three categories: polygenic, monogenic, and syndromic. The polygenic category included multiple genes, the monogenic category included a single gene, and the syndromic category linked obesity to syndromes that were present at birth.
Under the multiple gene category was the FTO gene (fat mass and obesity-related gene), which was present in 43% of humans. People who carry this gene and other similar genes may have difficulty losing weight due to hormonal factors, including higher levels of hunger and decreased satiety. They may be more likely to live a sedentary lifestyle and experience lower levels of food control, and their bodies may be inclined to store more fat.
