"One Of My Biggest Regrets": Oprah Winfrey On Participating In Diet Culture

Celebrity talk show host Oprah Winfrey who recently revealed that she takes weight-loss medication to help manage her weight has revealed that she regrets taking part in diet culture and plans to "do better." She said that she is "done" with diet culture and the "shame" that goes along with it to control her life during an event titled 'Making The Shift: A New Way to Think About Weight', as per a report in People Magazine.

The 70-year-old said, "So many of us have internalized about diet culture and the body standards that have caused us so much shame. We've been criticized. We've been scrutinized. We've been shamed, and we've been told that unless we meet a certain standard of size that we didn't deserve to be accepted or even to be loved."

The legendary talk show host continued, "And what I know for sure is that I am done with it."

The TV star went on to say that the goal of the discussion is to quit scrutinising people around you as well as release yourself from that scrutiny. Alternatively, as Winfrey put it, "stop judging others for the way they choose to live"-a decision she acknowledged as one of her "biggest regrets."

She continued, "I also want to acknowledge that I have been a steadfast participant in this diet culture through my platforms, through the magazine, through the talk show for 25 years, through online. 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."

She said, "I've shared how that famous 'wagon of fat' moment on the Oprah show is one of my biggest regrets." Ms Winfrey was referring to the 1988 incident on her talk show in which she revealed her weight loss and physically represented the pounds she had lost by wheeling out a wagon loaded with fat. 

"It sent a message that starving yourself with a liquid diet, set a standard for people watching that I nor anybody else could uphold and - I've said this before - the very next day the next day, I began to gain the weight back," she said.

The 70-year-old revealed that her views about diet culture changed over the years. "So these conversations for me are an effort to do better. I own what I've done and I now want to do better, so I know now that that 'wagon of fat' moment was set into motion after years and years of thinking that my struggle with my weight was my fault," she added.

"And it has taken me even up until last week to process the shame that I felt privately as my very public yo-yo diet moments became a national joke," the 70-year-old said.