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

Oprah Through the Years, Part 15 — Up Against the Wall

About Oprah Winfrey’s childhood, we know that the earliest part of it was spent with her single mother and her grandma, in an unstable and impoverished existence. It is hard to find information on whether she was overweight. From age nine she was sexually abused by two family members and an unrelated person, and at 14 gave birth to a child who died soon afterward. Then, she went to live with her father.

Although that situation was an improvement in many ways, she was still not okay, and said later, “The deepest pain I carried was believing I was unworthy.” The combination of shame, uncertainty, and a conviction of one’s own lack of value can certainly cause a person to find solace in food, if it is available.

From a medical source we learn that very young (11 to 14) pregnant patients are more apt to have obesity. It does not seem clear whether they start out that way, but this seems a likely possibility because the insecurity caused by being overweight can make them easy targets for predatory males. Another study concluded that teen births are associated with becoming overweight or obese later in life. Yet another affirms that…

Many teenage mothers struggle with proper nutrition during and after pregnancy. This can lead to long-term health problems, including obesity, diabetes, and osteoporosis.

We have said enough already about Oprah’s rise through the ranks into a stellar career, but this post intends to track the dark side of it, the period when she was doomed to participate in the general culture of fat-hating and fat-shaming. Her media career seemed in some ways to drift toward “specializing” in overweight, often with her own buxom figure as Exhibit A.

Probably no one else in history has so publicly shared the personal battle with obesity. The intensity of the fixation waxed and waned as other subjects captured her attention, and increased professional opportunities and personal initiatives took over. Somehow though, weight always seemed to remain a bedrock foundation of concern and obsession.

The Joan Rivers debacle

In an earlier post we mentioned the mindset of a fat-hating culture, and here is an ugly example of it. The year 1985 dumped Oprah right into a psychological river filled with rapids and sharp rocks: a TV appearance that was a striking example of the anti-fat trend, so extreme she felt compelled to bring it up almost 40 years later.

Oprah, who had just entered her 30s, appeared on The Tonight Show, with comedian Joan Rivers as guest host (and inquisitional prosecutor of heretics). The raucous Rivers did not set the precedent for speaking out against fat, but she definitely endorsed it. Clare Stephens for MamaMia.com transcribed the dialogue, which is edited here for length:

Rivers: So, how did you gain the weight?
Oprah: I ate a lot.
Rivers: You shouldn’t let that happen to you! You’re very pretty.
Oprah: (begins to say something)
Rivers: I don’t want to hear! You’re a pretty girl and you’re single, you must lose the weight.

Decades later, Oprah recalled how the audience laughed uneasily as Rivers wagged her index finger accusingly, while Oprah wanted nothing more than to crawl under her chair and hide. She reflected on the incredible rudeness of a host marring the national television debut of a younger woman by scolding her for her weight. And still, Oprah wasn’t off the hook. Rivers then mentioned a young singer who, according to her, was very chubby and needed to lose weight — and then went on to justify her own uncouth behavior by cranking the outrageousness up a notch:

You must tell a friend the truth! You must say “You’re still a pig, lose more weight.” That’s a friend.

Still stinging from exposure to this vicious mindset, a few months later Oprah, at almost 200 pounds, began hosting her own TV show in Chicago.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “The Oprah Winfrey Success Story,” TheStrive.co, 01/27/23
Source: “Rising from the Ashes: The Story of Oprah Winfrey’s Transformation,” Substack.com, 01/26/25
Source: “Pregnancy before 16 increases long-term health complications for girls and babies,” Utswmed.org, 04/11/23
Source: “The Effects Of Teenage Pregnancy On Physical Health,” CatchNutrition.com, 11/04/24
Source: “In 1985 Joan Rivers asked Oprah a Question,” mamamia.com, 05/13/24
Image by aphrodite-in-nyc/Attribution 2.0 Generic

Oprah Through the Years, Part 14 — What’s in a Word?

Back in 2010 Oprah Winfrey admitted to her audience, “I’ve never liked the term ‘food addict.'” Of course, over time, she had casually referred to herself as one of them, because it was the hip terminology, and because this is what a popular personality and influencer does. It’s the first lesson a stand-up comic learns, too. Start out with self-deprecation. Make fun of yourself, and the crowd will be on your side. Oprah went on to say,

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.

In late 2023 the star confirmed that she was taking something, and made a public statement about how her thinking had evolved:

I had an awareness of [weight-loss] medications, but felt I had to prove I had the willpower to do it. I now no longer feel that way.

Some critics objected to her breakup with WeightWatchers, seemingly on the grounds that nobody should ever be allowed to change their mind, even when they recognize that previous moves may have been less than brilliant. Many people, having dared to move in a new direction, have been shocked to find it was not tolerated by either friends or the public.

Oprah described the benefits of changing her mind about the medication. The widely-quoted statement says,

The fact that there’s a medically approved prescription for managing weight and staying healthier, in my lifetime, feels like relief, like redemption, like a gift, and not something to hide behind and once again be ridiculed for.

As part of the 2024 Teapot Tempest, Vanessa Romo of NPR reported that Oprah intended to elevate the conversation, advocate for health equity, and work to reduce stigma. In particular, her intention was to ditch shame, both the kind dispensed by others and the brand she manufactured herself. She was finished with five oppressive decades of feeling like, “Why can’t I just conquer this thing?,” and refused to believe any longer that a lack of willpower was a personal failure.

Meanwhile, she was hiking, hydrating, timing her meals more sanely, and still tabulating WeightWatchers points. Because, and this is a very important point that people would rather not acknowledge — you still have to do the work.

Further thoughts

A few years later, Oprah spoke of having had a revelation while moderating a panel on weight:

I realized I’d been blaming myself all these years for being overweight, and I have a predisposition that no amount of willpower is going to control. Obesity is a disease. It’s not about willpower — it’s about the brain.

She then consulted a doctor and was prescribed one of the new meds. On the shame issue (and many other matters) we see how Oprah adjusts her mind around new information, and can bring a large portion of America along with her. She has become something far more potent than a mere “influencer,” and is perceived as a moral arbiter.

This too led to her separation from WeightWatchers, which is a whole saga in itself. She added, “For the people who think that this (medication) could be the relief and support and freedom that you’ve been looking for your whole life, bless you.”

The part about obesity being a disease in the brain, is complicated in and of itself. Ultimately, everything is brain-linked in one way or another. And the connection between obesity and lab animal brains is different in quantity and quality from the connection between obesity and human brains. A person can think, “As long as I will need to wash a bowl anyway, I might as well have a large serving of stew, because that will justify using up the dish soap to wash just one dish.” No lab rat is capable of that quality of reasoning!

In the 2024 TV special, Oprah revealed,

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. And now I realize: y’all weren’t even thinking about the food! It’s not that you had the willpower; you weren’t obsessing about it!… I’m not constantly thinking about what the next meal is gonna be…

How many times have I blamed myself because you think, ‘I’m smart enough to figure this out,’ and then to hear all along it’s you fighting your brain.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “The Highs and Lows of Oprah Winfrey’s 50-Year Weight Loss Journey,” MSN.com, 2024
Source: “Oprah Winfrey Reveals She Uses Weight-Loss Medication as a ‘Maintenance Tool’: ‘I’m Absolutely Done with the Shaming’,” People.com, 12/14/23
Source: “After nearly a decade, Oprah Winfrey is set to depart the board of WeightWatchers,” NPR.org, 03/01/24
Source: “Oprah Winfrey says she has released the shame of being ‘ridiculed’ for her weight for 25 years,” ABCNews.go.com, 03/19/24
Source: “Oprah Winfrey reveals she starved herself ‘for nearly five months’ in ABC weight loss,” USATODAY.com, 03/18/24
Image by Javcon117*/Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic

Oprah through the Years, Part 13 — As a Co-operative Endeavor

We were discussing the book It’s Not Who You Know… It’s Who You Train, which Oprah collaborated on with Bob Greene. It starts with “Oprah’s Story,” and she also wrote chapter introductions. The amount of impetus that she gained through association with him is incalculable, perhaps partly because it has been a learning process all around. With luck, nobody comes fully formed to any relationship. With more luck, and maybe one or two other conditions, a healthy relationship is beneficial to both parties.

Greene is quoted as saying, “Two of the most accepted ways to deal with stress are to overeat and be a workaholic.” And it sounds like Oprah had been doing both, for a long while. But even here, there is ambivalence. For many people, the workhorse lifestyle has its advantages. Labor is a socially acceptable displacement activity for excess brain energy, and is generally more beneficial than overeating.

The person’s health may suffer in either case, but at least a workaholic is probably able to keep up with the bills. But there is a catch. Displacement activity, even the culturally approved kind like overworking oneself, is not always helpful… not when it is the symptom of a problem which, sooner or later, some effort ought to be made to fix.

It had to end

Oprah had been falling back on what, if viewed in a certain light, might seem like the perfect excuse. For a long time, she simply believed she did not possess willpower, just like she didn’t have blue eyes or size 7 feet. Ever since Greene began to influence her life, Oprah was obliged to think about his questions like, “Why is food my drug of choice?”

But at some point, the cognitive dissonance must have become impossible to ignore. Perhaps one morning, she awakened to the stark reality that sometimes, two things simply cannot both be true at the same time. Eventually, this paradox would become impossible to ignore. There must have been a day when Oprah asked herself something like this: “Let’s face it, I am famous and wealthy and most gloriously loved. If I don’t possess willpower, then how did I accomplish so much in terms of tangible, recognizable, undeniable success?”

Maybe this opens up an entirely new realm of possibilities. Maybe having willpower is not enough. Maybe the whole issue of avoiding obesity isn’t even about willpower. Or maybe Oprah had as much willpower as anyone, but it just wasn’t being properly deployed. Or maybe, in this instance, willpower was basically not the right tool for the job.

When things don’t add up

In 1988, a slim version of her former self had told the worldwide audience, “If you can believe in yourself, and believe that this is the most important thing in your life… you can conquer it.” But four years later, her weight almost hit 240 pounds, so obviously, an element was still missing from the equation.

The international star had been working intensely for years on projects and programs, using her sharp mind and many talents, not only to further her own career but to help and honor hundreds of thousands of people in ways both tangible and inexpressible. Oprah was stepping up in a brave new role. Her relationship with the world was changing, and so was her relationship with herself.

In 2020 she took a gigantic step in a fresh direction by featuring someone other than herself on the cover of O, The Oprah Magazine. This was Breonna Taylor, the medical technician who had been killed by police under extremely dicey circumstances. It indicated a new direction.

It might be useful to understand some things about Oprah’s decision-making process and the values behind it and so forth. We also speculated on how the different vocabularies used in various academic disciplines could obscure the fact that sometimes, wise and learned people might be talking about the same thing, and possibly with basic agreement on some essential point, even on the verge of finding philosophical harmony — but language gets in the way.

When a huge number of people are in trouble for wanting what they want, such as to indulge an insatiable appetite; and if that seems to others to be an undesirable condition or outcome; then perhaps the trick is to figure out why the person wants what they want. Helping Oprah to decipher this vital matter might be the main function that mentor Bob Greene has served.

(To be continued…)

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “It’s Not Who You Know… It’s Who You Train,” ChicagoTribune.com, 08/19/21
Image by Gerald Mendoza/Attribution 2.0 Generic

Oprah Through the Years, Part 12 — Bob Greene, Willpower, and Motivation

The previous post included some of the thoughts Dr. Pretlow has published on the subject of will/willpower. Now we look at precepts passed on to Oprah Winfrey by her longtime health and weight management coach, Bob Greene.

As reported in a Good Housekeeping article by Kate Coyne, the first inquiry that one should make to oneself is, “Do I have poor willpower?” As suggested in Part 8, the answer to that, in Oprah’s case, must have been an overwhelming “No!”.

Then comes a harder question: “Why is food my drug of choice?” For everyone who has ever engaged in a battle with their own body fat, figuring that out is a much more complicated challenge, which most folks apparently never quite manage to meet.

Possibly that difficulty is connected with the second Greene precept — taking responsibility. No fair blaming of family members, or job stress, or any other external factor. “If you’re offering up a lot of excuses, you’re wasting your time.” What is the antidote to time-wasting excuses? Stating goals, and making a solid commitment to meet those goals. It might help to draft a contract with oneself, and officially sign it — with the same degree of seriousness that one would give to any other binding legal document.

Adhere to your contract

An interesting feature of Greene’s philosophy is that he emphasizes the concept of willpower — “Your inner strength is most important” — and as suggested previously, perhaps everyone is naturally endowed with a great amount of inner strength, and the problem lies in their tendency to use it for different purposes, such as resisting any change in lifestyle or behavior.

Greene realizes that behavior change might have a better chance if it is introduced gradually, so don’t embark on an ambitious structured workout plan right from the jump. Use stairs instead of elevators, and if there are errands you can accomplish on foot, do that rather than drive. Walk the dog twice around the block instead of once. Just kind of creep up on change at first, and that deep-down revulsion against exercise might remain dormant. Then, follow his plan for a gradual increase.

The same goes for food, he advises. At first, cut out about 10% of the customary caloric intake; start learning about simple versus complex carbohydrates; cultivate a taste for vegetables; and enjoy a little bit of fat. And then, look into timing. At least three hours before sleep, stop eating. And over the long haul, expect ups and downs. There may be discouraging periods when it seems like nothing changes, so rather than give in to hopelessness, figure out how to cope with that.

Who you know

In 2021, Greene published a book titled It’s Not Who You Know… It’s Who You Train, referring of course to Oprah, who also had a hand in the authorship. Weight loss isn’t the main thing, but wellness is. Achieve a higher level of general wellness, and most people will find that weight loss comes much more easily. A person can lay a solid foundation for success by identifying and dealing with their emotional issues, and by pinpointing their counterproductive methods of stress alleviation and substituting more helpful ones.

An uncredited Chicago Tribune reporter wrote,

Although he was schooled to treat weight as a physical problem, his experience working with overweight people made it clear to him that psychological factors are crucial. Greene learned to probe for the reasons people seek comfort in food. “We need to start thinking about their motivations,” he says.“When I started employing that philosophy, that’s when I started having extreme success.”

Actually, maybe the motivation question is not that mystifying. Even an amoeba knows enough to take action to avoid pain. It probably also seeks pleasure. At any rate, Green provides a list of 10 habits which, if followed, will make a significant difference. One can will oneself into doing some things. For instance: always look for a way to turn a minus into a plus. Greene recognizes, for instance, that Oprah faces a lot of obstacles, starting with an inherently slow metabolism.

But even that, he turns into a plus, by acknowledging the stumbling block she deals with, and praising her for overcoming it:

“She can look at food and put on weight,” he says… “That’s why I think she’s one of best examples for other people… For her to get on the cover of Shape, I know how hard she needs to work. It’s harder than [it is for] 99 percent of the people.”

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “The Healthy Way to Lose Weight,” GoodHousekeeping.com, 04/05/04
Source: “ It’s Not Who You Know… It’s Who You Train,” ChicagoTribune.com, 08/19/21
Image by Get Everwise/Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic