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Oprah Winfrey is reflecting on her role in ‘diet culture’, a topic of much debate in the current climate. The actor and producer was seen in a three-hour special on YouTube with WeightWatchers called Making the Shift, where she went on to apologise for her ‘major’ contribution to diet culture through her decades-long experience as a talk show host and television figure in the industry.
What Oprah Winfrey said
During the show, Oprah said, “I want to acknowledge that I have been a steadfast participant in this diet culture. Through my platforms, through the magazine, through the talk show for 25 years and online, 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 on television.”
On the ‘wagon of fat’ episode
She further continued, “I’ve shared how that famous wagon of fat on The Oprah Show is one of my biggest regrets. It sent a message that starving yourself with a liquid diet set a standard for people watching that I nor anybody else could uphold. The very next day I began to gain the weight back… That wagon of fat moment was set into motion after years and years of thinking that my struggle with my weight was my fault and it has taken me even up until last week to process the shame I felt privately as my very public yo-yo diet moments became a national joke.”
Earlier this year, in February, Oprah announced that she was leaving the WeightWatchers board and donating her shares to the National Museum of African American History and Culture. She had told Jimmy Kimmel Live that she chose to resign because of her show called An Oprah Special: Shame, Blame and the Weight Loss Revolution, in which she would talk about prescription weight loss medications. The show released in March.
