After stepping down from the board of WeightWatchers to maintain her journalistic independence for her new televised special on weight-loss medications and body-shaming, Oprah Winfrey fans got a chance to see what all the fuss was about as An Oprah Special: Shame, Blame and the Weight Loss Revolution premiered on ABC on Monday night.
In the special, Oprah delves into the impact of new prescription obesity management medications like Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro on the weight-loss industry, and her own personal experience with being body-shamed as a prominent national television figure for a quarter-century.
“I have to say that I took on the shame that the world gave to me,” Winfrey heartbreakingly admitted. “For 25 years, making fun of my weight was national sport.”
Winfrey remembered being “ridiculed” on tabloid covers and on late-night talk shows for over twenty years, with one particularly hurtful headline etched in her memory in which she was referred to as “bumpy, lumpy and downright dumpy.”
Winfrey even admits that at one point, during the peak viewership reign of her daytime talk show, she practically “starved” herself for many months on a liquid-only diet. That culminated with a famous on-screen segment where Oprah wheeled out a wagon of 67 pounds of fat to showcase the weight she had lost. However, she explained, the very next day she had started to regain the weight.
Oprah explained to viewers her rationale for tackling this special. “I come to this conversation with the hope that we can start releasing the stigma and the shame and the judgment,” she explained. “To stop shaming other people for being overweight or how they choose to lose — or not lose — weight, and most importantly, to stop shaming ourselves.”
Winfrey famously revealed in December to People that she is taking a prescription weight loss medication to try to prevent weight fluctuations. She chose not to reveal which medication she is taking. WeightWatchers has also started manufacturing its own weight-loss medication, another reason Winfrey may have chosen to step down from the company's board before the premiere of this special.
Winfrey shared her hopes for viewers' takeaway from this special. “The number one thing I hope people come away with is knowing that [obesity] is a disease, and it's in the brain,” she stressed.
Oprah relied on interviews with medical experts to back up her argument. One of those interviewees was ABC News chief medical correspondent and obesity medicine physician Dr. Jen Ashton.
Ashton told Winfrey, “It is conclusively known that the conditions of overweight and obesity are complex, chronic disease states, not character flaws … so they should be managed accordingly.”
“Oh, I love that so much, Dr. Jen,” Winfrey responded. “It's a disease, not a character flaw.”
An Oprah Special: Shame, Blame and the Weight Loss Revolution was filmed in front of a live studio audience, much like The Oprah Winfrey Show was in its heyday. If you missed it on ABC, the special is also streaming on Hulu.
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