In an interview with CBS News, global media icon Oprah Winfrey spoke candidly about her decades-long struggle with weight — a journey that, she said, reflects a wider misunderstanding of obesity as a moral failing rather than a medical condition.
Asked whether getting dressed feels different today, Winfrey described a quiet but meaningful change. “It’s a joy to pack clothes knowing they’ll fit and that I’ll feel good in them,” she told CBS News, calling it a powerful shift after years of weight fluctuations lived under constant public scrutiny.
Despite her extraordinary professional success, Winfrey said weight remained a deeply personal battle. Recalling a moment from 1985, when she was bluntly questioned about her weight during a television appearance, she said the exchange left her humiliated but not angry. “I thought, ‘She’s right,’” she said.
Over the next four decades, Winfrey repeatedly lost and regained weight through extreme dieting, intense exercise regimes, and even marathon training. Yet, she noticed a pattern — her body consistently returned to the same range. “No matter how hard I worked, my body was always trying to get back there,” she said.
That experience, she now understands, is linked to what doctors call a genetically influenced “set point” — a weight range the body naturally defends. Winfrey refers to it as the “enough point,” a concept explored in Enough, a book she co-wrote with Ania Jastreboff of Yale School of Medicine.
Dr Jastreboff told CBS News that when people cut calories, the body adapts by slowing metabolism and increasing hunger. “We end up eating more and burning less,” she explained, adding that telling people to simply “eat less and move more” ignores biological reality.
This view aligns with the stance of the American Medical Association, which recognises obesity as a chronic, treatable disease. For Winfrey, that understanding was transformative. “It’s not my fault,” she said, reflecting on years spent blaming herself.
While new weight-management drugs have offered relief to millions worldwide, Winfrey admitted she resisted medication for years, driven by shame and the belief that willpower alone should suffice. She eventually began treatment two years ago and says it has helped her reach and maintain a healthier weight.
Today, at 71, Winfrey says she feels stronger than she did decades ago. “I feel free,” she told CBS News.
Looking back, she believes her openness about weight helped her connect with audiences across cultures and generations. “I wouldn’t change the journey,” she said. “The struggle made me more relatable. And now, I feel the healthiest and strongest I’ve ever been.”
For a global audience grappling with rising obesity rates and persistent stigma, Winfrey’s message is clear: understanding the biology of weight may be the first step toward compassion — both for others and for oneself.