Will we ever stop judging women on their weight?

In an emotional broadcast this week, Oprah Winfrey spoke about the decades of judgment she’s endured because of her weight. Photo / AP

OPINION

Oprah Winfrey can do whatever she wants. Like all of us, she is under no obligation to be perfect.

Here are a few fascinating things about Oprah Winfrey that you might be interested in her hosting a one hour TV special about: how she went from a childhood of poverty to becoming one of the richest women in the world; how she found the strength to survive years of sexual abuse as a child, not to mention the death in infancy of her son, whom she gave birth to when she was only 14; how she manages to get some of the most famous people in the world – from presidents to royalty to pop stars – to talk to her publicly about things they previously wouldn’t have even told their therapists; what it feels like to be one of the most inspirational women on the planet.

Here is what the 70-year-old philanthropist and media mogul this week felt the need to host a TV special about: her weight.

In an emotional broadcast, Winfrey spoke about the decades of judgment she’s endured because she’s had the temerity to not always have the figure of a Sports Illustrated model.

For the crime of sometimes being overweight, Oprah has been shamed in tabloids, and mocked viciously by late night talk show hosts.

In An Oprah Special: Shame, Blame and the Weight Loss Revolution, Winfrey admitted that she would “never forget” being called “bumpy, lumpy and downright dumpy” on the cover of a magazine; nor was she able to ignore headlines such as “Oprah: Fatter than Ever” and “Oprah warned ‘diet or die’”.

“I come to this conversation in the hope that we can start releasing the stigma and the shame and the judgment to stop shaming other people for being overweight, or how they choose to lose or not lose weight, and more importantly to stop shaming ourselves,” she said, in the ABC show that will also be made available for streaming on Hulu.

“I have to say that I took on the shame that the world gave to me – for 25 years, making fun of my weight was a national sport … In an effort to combat all the shame, I starved myself for nearly five months and then wheeled out that wagon of fat that the internet will never let me forget.”

Winfrey was referring to the moment, in 1988, when she strutted on to camera pulling a cart containing the equivalent of the 67 pounds she had lost by going on a liquid diet. In 2005 she admitted that “two weeks after I [finished that diet and] returned to real food, I was up 10 pounds. Since I wasn’t exercising, there was nothing my body could do but regain the weight.”

People have watched Winfrey’s changing shape as they would a soap opera.

Ever since, people have watched Winfrey’s changing shape as they would a soap opera. It may be her home, but make no mistake: for 25 years, there has been a sense that Oprah Winfrey’s body has somehow belonged to the American public.

So you can imagine the fuss when, last year, Winfrey admitted to using weight loss injections such as Ozempic and Wegovy (though she didn’t specify which). The internet erupted in fury; the same people who had previously mocked her for being fat now mocked her for being the wrong kind of thin.

Last month, Winfrey announced that she would not be serving on the board of WeightWatchers any more, because she didn’t want there to be “a perceived conflict of interest” for this TV special.

In the show, she described eloquently the battle that so many face with food, likening it to addictions to alcohol and drugs.

She spoke of the relief she felt when the medication took away the endless chatter about eating that has existed in her head for her entire life.

“All these years I thought all of the people who never had to diet were just using their willpower and they were for some reason stronger than me,” she said.

“And now I realise y’all weren’t even thinking about the food. It’s not that you had the willpower, you weren’t thinking about, you weren’t obsessing about it. That is the big thing I learned.”

Winfrey makes valid and important points about what fuels the obesity ‘crisis’: that, at its heart, it is as much a mental health condition as it is a physical one, and any policy that ignores this is doomed to fail.

In the past, Winfrey has movingly explained that for her, gaining weight “was the perfect way of cushioning myself against the world’s disapproval”. In other words, the more she was shamed for her weight, the more she took to food for comfort.

And yet time and time again, obesity is seen as a moral failing, a sign of weakness and a lack of self-discipline. Never mind that such judgments are in themselves pretty lazy and counterproductive – fat people are such an easy target, that we seem to have lost the ability to challenge ourselves and look at the wider societal issues that might lead to people losing themselves in food.

But the problem here is not Winfrey’s weight. It’s not even misconceptions about obesity. The real problem, I think, is that we live in a world where women are furiously judged for absolutely everything they do.

Elon Musk and Jeremy Clarkson can admit to taking weight loss drugs without anyone raising an eyebrow. But the moment someone like Oprah does it, she feels she has to explain and justify herself with a one hour TV special.

Oprah Winfrey, Elon Musk and Amy Schumer are some of the celebrities who have admitted to using Ozempic and other weight-loss drugs. Photos / Getty Images, 123RF. Herald montage

And yet here is the thing: Oprah Winfrey can do whatever she wants. She owes us absolutely nothing. Like all of us, she is under no obligation to be perfect. She is allowed to mess up, to succumb to dodgy diets and the pressure to take Ozempic.

As her friend Maya Angelou used to tell her frequently: “When you know better, you do better.” And she is doing the best that she can, publicly, in a landscape of scrutiny so punishing that most of us cannot even begin to imagine what it is like.

And I can’t stop thinking here about the Princess of Wales, also currently the subject of fevered speculation and judgment. This, despite Kensington Palace making clear that she had undergone abdominal surgery and would not be back at work until Easter (that’s still over a week away, in case you hadn’t noticed).

The pressure on women to behave impeccably and look smiley and happy and perfect is still ludicrous … and I think it’s pretty unbecoming of us as a society, given that it’s 2024.

Winfrey ended the broadcast by saying “let’s stop the shaming and blaming, there is no place for it”. Sadly, certain quarters of social media and the internet will let her know what they think of that.

But let us hope that for now, we can leave a 70-year-old woman alone and focus on what really matters.

For the record, it’s not her weight.