Oprah Winfrey Says Her Opinion of ‘Thin People’ Changed After She Used Weight Loss Drugs
"I thought that thin people just had more willpower,” the 70-year-old said
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Oprah WinfreyOprah Winfrey is opening up about the revelation she had about “thin people.”
On the Jan. 14 episode of The Oprah Podcast, the former talk show host had a conversation with Yale University obesity medicine physician scientist Dr. Ania Jastreboff and clinical psychologist Dr. Rachel Goldman about obesity and weight loss medications.
Winfrey, 70, admitted that her opinion changed after using weight loss medications herself.
“One of the things that I realized the very first time I took a GLP-1 was that all these years I thought that thin people, those people just had more willpower,” she said. “They ate better foods. They were able to stick to it longer. They never had a potato chip.”
“And then I realized the very first time I took the GLP-1 that, oh, they’re not even thinking about it,” she continued. “They’re only eating when they’re hungry and they’re stopping when they’re full.”
Winfrey said that that mindset simply “doesn’t work” if you have obesity. She also discussed the struggle with food noise later in the conversation, which was featured in the Jan. 21 episode. The multi-hyphenate star said that those who deal with obesity will “always have to live with it,” even after they lose weight with the help of weight loss drugs.
“Just because you’ve lost the weight, you haven’t solved the problem of obesity,” she said, noting that it’s something that has to be managed because of the food noise.
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A year ago, Winfrey revealed that she has been using a weight-loss medication after years of struggling with her health.
"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," she told PEOPLE in December 2023. "Obesity is a disease. It’s not about willpower — it's about the brain."
Once she reconciled the science, Winfrey said she "released my own shame about it" and consulted her doctor, who went on to prescribe a weight-loss medication. "I now use it as I feel I need it, as a tool to manage not yo-yoing," she said, opting not to name the specific drug she takes.
"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,” she said at the time. “I’m absolutely done with the shaming from other people and particularly myself."
Winfrey is aware of the buzz around her body size, especially as the use of medications like Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro for weight loss has surged in popularity. But she stressed it has not been a magic bullet or singular solution.
"It’s everything," she said of her all-encompassing health and fitness routine. "I know everybody thought I was on it, but I worked so damn hard. I know that if I’m not also working out and vigilant about all the other things, it doesn’t work for me."
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