Oprah, overweight and apologies: “I own what I’ve done”

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Oprah Winfrey addressed the role she played in perpetuating diet culture over the years in a recent livestream.

Winfrey spoke to the in-person and virtual audience at the WeightWatchers “Making The Shift: A New Way to Think About Weight” livestream on Thursday, May 9 about reaching a “pivotal moment in the way we talk about and the way we think about “our bodies.”

At the start of the livestream, Winfrey took a moment to speak about her own role in “diet culture” over the years.

“I want to acknowledge that I have been a steady participant in this diet culture through my platforms, through the magazine, through the talk show for 25 years,” Winfrey said.

She continued, adding, “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 in television.”

Winfrey addressed one specific moment from “The Oprah Winfrey Show” in 1988 when she rolled a wagon of fat onto the stage, calling it one of her “her biggest regrets.”

“It sent a message that starving myself with a liquid diet and setting a standard for people watching that I, nor anyone else, could uphold,” she explained. “The very next day, I began to gain the weight back. Maya Angelou always said ‘When you know better, you do better,’ so these conversations for me are an effort to do better.”

She added, “I own what I’ve done, and now I want to do better.”

After serving as a board member for WW, formerly known as WeightWatchers, since 2015, she announced in February that she would be leaving the board of directors and would not stand for re-election at the next shareholder meeting in May.