Oprah Through the Years, Part 21

Courtesy of the Oprah Winfrey Network, March of 2011 brought the TV audience a new reality show, “Addicted to Food.” It was recorded on location at the Shades of Hope Treatment Center, a facility specializing in eating disorders and addiction. Shades of Hope founder and CEO Tennie McCarty has found that addicts come from homes affected by dysfunction, abuse, addiction, or some combination of all three. The work that must be done is “to delve deep within and confront not only the outward behaviors of addiction, but also the secrets, pain, self-loathing, and blame that lie beneath.”

How long does that take? At minimum, 42 days, which is the length of the Intensive Residential Program. This has been shown to be enough time to dig into the psychological issues, learn the tools of recovery, and achieve a solid state of abstinence. The process is not easy, and the rules are strict, for good reason. No alcohol, no smoking, no other types of addictive substances are allowed, because to run a program meant to end one sort of addiction while allowing other addictive substance to be used is just plain silly.

While a client’s weight may be tracked, it is not revealed. The point is to get away from the idea that “it is always about the numbers and the connection of worth/control/success to the number on the scale.”

And that’s not all…

Oh — and no TV, or books or magazines are allowed either, because people need to be thinking about their own issues, not about the larger world or some imaginary characters. McCarty explains that the goal is to allow all the negative feelings to emerge and “slap the client in the face.” Hopefully, that blow will metaphorically knock the mask right off, exposing the anger and all the other stuff. When this happens, the client is said to be “showing up.”

The Intensive period includes Family Week, and then another week in which to process whatever transpired during that time, and to figure out what’s next — which might be a transitional period, either still at the Shades of Hope, or at another facility. Or perhaps it is time to return home, and get back to school, work, or whatever.

But… and this is a big but…

None of these stages can be regarded as an end point, because this is not a race where a person breaks through a ribbon at the end of the course. Nope, says McCarty. It’s all about a lifelong commitment, during which the individual must be constantly on guard because that inner void still cries out to be filled, and “switching” addictions is definitely a real possibility, to be avoided at all costs. Day by day and minute by minute, the commitment — to use new attitudes and new tools to change old patterns — must be scrupulously kept.

McCarty offers five helpful “tips” for recovery, more thoroughly described on her page, and worth looking into:

1. Be conscious of what you eat.
2. Eat with intention.
3. Maintain a healthy meal plan.
4. Eat by the clock.
5. Recovery is not a diet, but a way of life.

The show made at this “extremely difficult rehab center” involved eight clients, and it must have been edifying for Oprah to recognize which one (or ones) she most closely identified with. Seven years later, InTouchWeekly.com made an attempt to follow up on the participants, which proved to be rather half-hearted and largely unsuccessful. But their website also contains the trailer for the original show, which is pretty interesting. SocialWorkersSpeak.org also took note of the series and made some comments.

In the next chapter of Oprah Winfrey’s life of up-and-down weight shifts, we will see things take off in a whole different direction.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Addicted to Food Q&A: Tennie McCarty and Tough Love,” Oprah.com Source: “Remember Oprah’s Reality Show ‘Addicted to Food’? Here’s What the Cast Is up to in 2018,” InTouchWeekly.com, 03/01/18
Source: “Oprah Winfrey Network’s ‘Addicted to Food’ Tackles Emotions Behind Eating Disorders,” SocialWorkersSpeak.org, 05/12/11
Image by Pat Hartman

Oprah Through the Years, Part 20

We left off last time by mentioning how the rules change. This is one of life’s little jokes. As soon as you get used to one condition or set of circumstances, it will probably be necessary, before too long, to readjust to something else. For humans, the primary survival trait is adaptability, and the young are better at it. This is one reason why, when correctly applied, being like a little child is a very desirable state.

Youth is when many people are easily able to swallow and assimilate anything without suffering a physical penalty. As the body ages, it becomes less tolerant and… the rules change. When something else is going on at the same time, this fact might be easy to ignore. In the case of Oprah Winfrey, trainer and friend Bob Greene pointed out that her thyroid issue was an easy excuse to fall back on, and that she had “absolutely” done so on more than one occasion.

People are usually pretty good at generating excuses for not achieving their dreams. Just like a regular human, the global influencer and star had a particular and individual issue to deal with. In her case, it was a medical condition that required expert management, as well as patient compliance.

At the same time, like billions of regular people, Oprah was getting older every minute. As time goes on, and even with dedicated effort, it becomes more and more difficult to stave off weight gain.

In human history, this has rarely been the case. For obesity to become a significant problem, a society has to reach the stage of having food surplus to its needs. The civilization advances to where it can afford to have some members unable to defend themselves, and dependent on others for their continued well-being. When the society has abundant food, and physical fitness is not a priority requirement, people can become obese.

The Bob Greene worldview

Greene theorized that no one, be they an anonymous teenager or a world-famous star, would ever be able to completely overcome food addiction; that the problem would never completely disappear, and would always need conscious and diligent management. He also suggested that no one could properly start the recovery journey without squarely facing five crucial questions:

What are you hungry for?
Why are you overweight?
Why have you been unable to maintain weight loss in the past?
What in your life is not working?
Why do you want to lose weight?

The last query is a particular challenge, because the seeker is quite likely to come up with the wrong answer. “Then I’ll be happy” is not the right one, because it encompasses only two possible outcomes, neither of which can satisfy, as Greene explains:

You never reach that size or weight and you’re never happy. And even worse, you reach that size and weight and realize it has nothing to do with your happiness.

The following year, 2010, was when Oprah famously stated for publication that she was not fond of the term “food addict,” but…

I realize that I really have been one. And believe me, I — like so many of you — have punished myself for that. But I know that I’m not alone, and I know that the battle hasn’t ended.

This admission seems to cover two bases: First, it pleads guilty to the same fat-hate that dwells in the heart of even the most compassionate person. Also, it appears to confirm that the last person anyone is ever able to forgive is their own self.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Oprah’s Weight Loss Confession,” Oprah.com, undated
Image by Oprah.com/Fair Use

Oprah Through the Years, Part 19

As we learned, during a decade or so of time the weight issue was not a major problem for Oprah. She had found a large amount of inner peace in not hating any part of herself, not even the pockets of cellulite. But old mental habits die hard, and there are contradictions involved in embracing the self, no matter how calorically challenged, while also carrying out public activities (on national television, for instance) that might be regarded by the cynically minded as the very embodiment of fat-hate.

Imagine this scenario: The problem you overcame, and so triumphantly buried with a great deal of ceremony (and publicity), has clawed its way out of the grave, hitched a ride on a garbage truck, and is now demolishing your front door. What could be more disheartening? Oprah Winfrey, after a lot of emotional ups and downs, had reached a pretty good emotional equilibrium and, if there was any justice, ought to have been able to coast.

Instead, after being advised to “learn to embrace hunger,” she gradually gained back 40 pounds. Some of the difficulty was simply due to nature taking its course. As a human body ages, multiple processes are responsible for making it less resilient. It does not mend itself like it used to, and pain occurs in parts you never even knew you had. The entire organism might suddenly begin to demonstrate an uncanny propensity to grow.

O, the publication

At the beginning of 2009, the cover of Oprah’s very own slick magazine showed her current self next to an earlier, much slimmer version, and the words “How did I let this happen again?”… all of which looked like a pretty clear case of fat-hate. The inside pages held her musings on that subject, including a strong suspicion that the ultimate cause was a life out of balance, “with too much work and not enough play, not enough time to calm down… I let the well run dry.”

The conclusion seemed to point in a productive direction:

I don’t have a weight problem — I have a self-care problem that manifests through weight.

In that same year, a segment of the immensely popular “The Oprah Winfrey Show” featured 16 teens participating in “a grueling eight-hour intervention where they confront the reasons why they’re overweight.” Author Natalie Flynn described it as “humanizing” and as a way for booth the participants and the audience to grasp “what living with obesity truly entails.”

A recent Salon.com article looked back over that time with a congratulatory pronouncement:

[W]hat Winfrey has largely consistently managed to get right is her approach to childhood obesity. In her recent special and in old episodes […] Winfrey allows children to speak candidly about their weight, often showing in raw detail how obesity takes a toll on them mentally, socially and physically.

Cynics might have identified it as just another, though perhaps superficially compassionate, demonstration of how obsessed society is with maintaining a standard of fat-hate, while at the same time blaming the victims for “abusing food.” That in itself is a tricky phrase, which could logically encompass chaining up food in a basement and striking it with a belt.

Meanwhile, Bob Greene was also in the public eye, providing for the official website “Oprah’s Weight Loss Confession.” Some of the problems in the media star’s case, not relevant to most teenagers, were the concurrent challenges presented by worldwide success. Oprah had met and overcome so many obstacles, he theorized, that it was difficult for her to grasp the inevitable challenge of aging, which means “the rules change.”

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “The Highs and Lows of Oprah Winfrey’s 50-Year Weight Loss Journey,” EOnline.com, 03/24/24
Source: “On abandoning ‘fattertainment’: Why the way we talk about childhood obesity matters,” Salon.com, 03/22/24
Source: “Oprah’s Weight Loss Confession,” Oprah.com, 01/05/09
Image by aphrodite-in-nyc/Attribution 2.0 Generic

Oprah Through the Years, Part 18

We have discussed the concept of displacement and its various manifestations. In the most primitive sense, displacement is an escape valve for the mental energy generated by a threatening situation. In the most elemental case, the choices might be limited to “fight” or “flight.”

In the simplest terms, someone with a threatening food addiction might opt to fight, by getting into a program of some kind; or to flee by ignoring the threat and by putting all that mental energy into (for instance) online gaming, a very sedentary occupation that offers a lot of opportunity for snacking.

But we humans are more complicated than that, and sometimes our wires get crossed. A previous post offered the example of the so-called “fitness freak,” who trades in their doughnut habit for an obsession with working out, losing fat, and gaining muscle — to a degree that bystanders might call obsessive. But as long as a displacement activity keeps the person away from their drug of choice, while at the same time doing no harm, and while actually achieving good results, why not just accept it and move on?

The fly in the ointment

For Oprah Winfrey, however, no amount of activity could displace her craving for bread and potatoes and a whole lot of other edibles. For decades, she was a whirlwind of energy, constantly involved with professional obligations and thoroughly invested in charitable efforts.

Going back to the most elementary definition of displacement behavior, she focused on helping people flee or fight; to escape or defeat obesity. One of her 1995 TV episodes on “fattertainment” was optimistically described like this: “By providing solutions, rather than showcasing problems, the show hopes to use the power of broadcasting in a positive manner.”

Three young girls had written to the host about their uncomfortable feelings and experiences around excess weight. Oprah’s crews filmed their families and the girls and their mothers appeared on the show to talk about the “emotional roadblocks” that contribute to obesity among the young.

On the personal level

In 1995, at age 47, Oprah started to work with trainer Bob Greene, because like any sane person, she realized that having an intellectual realization is not the same thing as living the newly revealed truth. Still, it took a few more years and some unnerving heart palpitations to really jolt her into high gear. Eventually, it occurred her that “taking care of my heart, the life force of my body, had never been my priority” — and then proceeded to organize life differently with an eye toward shrinking the influence of the three ominous O’s — “Overeating. Overstressing. Overdoing.”

Furthermore — and this appears to be a vital element of the whole equation — to quote Oprah, “I no longer hated any part of myself, including the cellulite.” Ten years later, the cover of O magazine feature a toned 160-pound Oprah. By this time, she thought the actual battle with excess weight had been won. Looking back later, she said,

I’d conquered it. I was so sure, I was even cocky. I had the nerve to say to friends who were struggling, ‘All you have to do is work out harder and eat less! Get your 10,000 steps in! None of that starchy stuff!’

Not long afterwards, puzzled medical professionals diagnosed her first with hyperthyroidism, then with hypothyroidism, and what with one thing and another, exercise began to seem less of a priority, and she was warned by a doctor that it would be necessary to “learn to embrace hunger,” which she was in no way prepared to do.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “On abandoning ‘fattertainment’: Why the way we talk about childhood obesity matters,” Salon.com, 03/22/24
Source: “Making Peace With My Body,” Oprah.com, 08/01/02
Source: “The Highs and Lows of Oprah Winfrey’s 50-Year Weight Loss Journey,” MSN.com, 03/24/24
Image by aphrodite-in-nyc/Attribution 2.0 Generic

Oprah Through the Years, Part 16

The previous post discussed a stressful event from when Oprah Winfrey’s career was just taking off — her interrogation and public shaming by comedian Joan Rivers who was, on that day, not very humorous at all.

We do not presume to read Oprah’s mind. But a rudimentary understanding of human psychology (and especially, personal experience with therapy) could inspire a person to imagine how the effects of such strenuous and ubiquitous harping on weight could cultivate a preoccupation with the subject that would carry into the future.

It could set up an ongoing conflict between being perpetually overweight oneself, and the seeming necessity to buy into the fat-hating, fat-shaming culture that America and many parts of the world had converted to. This is what appears to have happened to Oprah, while at the same time, over the ensuing years, she also had learning experiences and personal revelations about the harm caused by the whole anti-fat zeitgeist.

The path of twisted reasoning

It might make sense to perceive that 1985 event as something that loomed large in her subconscious, drawing her more and more into the fat-despising state of mind, while at the same time coping with the mental conflict that demanded she must of course despise herself. It would, after all, be a logical conclusion. If you are required to hate Fat, and yet also supposed to love yourself, well, that is simply too much cognitive dissonance for the mind to handle. Therefore, if you hate fat and and are fat, you must necessarily hate yourself — which somehow turns out to be easier than exploring the illogical root of the contradiction.

Aunt Joanie really cares

Also, logically, if such a prominent person as Rivers took the trouble to give advice — rough as that widely broadcast counseling session had been — it must mean that she truly cared, and only wanted the best for this TV guest who aimed for a career in entertainment. It was as if a respected aunt warned a troubled teenager that she had better straighten up and fly right, before she encountered the juvenile justice system and wound up in the reformatory.

If fat is bad, then as an honest and upright person you must hate all the fat, even your own. And if that awful stuff is part of you, you must be pretty awful. So to redeem yourself, the least you could do is become a missionary for the abolition of fat — which might account for the many shows having to do with overweight that Oprah produced and hosted over the years. Who knows? It might even connect to her later alignment with WeightWatchers, which could, uncharitably, be read not only as an investment opportunity, but also as “virtue signaling.”

In 1986, with the humiliation by Rivers still fresh, Oprah told her TV audience, “I still hate myself because of my weight.” Soon afterward came the quotation we already mentioned, which included the damning words,

If you can’t fit into your clothes, it means the fat won. It means you didn’t win.

And it’s not as if Oprah had never recognized the issue. For at least a decade, it had already loomed large in her mind. As far back as 1977, when she first consulted a diet doctor, she had been striving to win. Whenever a new fad diet came along she tried it, with consistently unsatisfactory results.

The session with Joan Rivers was later confirmed to be connected with the incident (three years later, in 1988) that Oprah eventually came to recognize as the “biggest, fattest mistake” of her career. In an article published only last year, Clare Stephens wrote,

Oprah recently acknowledged her role in perpetuating diet culture during a livestream for Weight Watchers. “I’ve been a major contributor to it.” she said… The wagon of fat has gone down in pop culture history as an example of our pathological obsession with weight loss…

[T]he wagon of fat seems like the insidious start of it all. A moment of stigmatizing fat, and telling an audience of primarily women that if they just cared enough, theirs could be set aside too, rather than attached to their bodies.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “In 1985 Joan Rivers asked Oprah a Question,” MamaMia.com, 05/13/24
Image by Pat Hartman