Oprah Hits 2-0-0: Media Say "Oh, No, No!"

Oprah Winfrey has chubbed up again. She announced it on the cover of her own magazine with a big coverline quote: "How did I let this happen again?"

The news of her weight gain spread like butter on a hot skillet around the tabloids, gossip blogs and columns. They are treating it with shock! Shock! As though we all haven't been watching Oprah fairly bursting out of her squeezy-sweater-dressy wardrobe over these past many months.

What, we had to wait till Oprah herself admitted it? Girl, we could see you were back on the chips and pie. And it didn't take high-def.

“I’m mad at myself,” Winfrey writes in an article for the January '09 O mag. “I’m embarrassed,” she writes. “I can’t believe that after all these years, all the things I know how to do, I’m still talking about my weight."

We can't believe it either. Because if anyone has a pass on the rule that says women on TV have to be skeletal, it's Oprah Winfrey. Her heft is part of her appeal. It's an oft-quoted statistic that the average American woman is size 12 or larger. O looks to be about a 16-18 at the moment. And nobody's turning her show off because of that.

At her slimmest, Oprah was probably just north of single digits and that's back when she was starving herself and doing those maniac workouts with trainer Bob Greene every day. When she's working at it, like when she trained for the New York Marathon, she looks good at about a 12-14 -- a size range that, in the real world, is perfectly acceptable, even desirable, for her height (about 5'9") and her age (55).

We love Oprah for her generous proportions, her ample avoirdupois. She should be larger than life, not a candidate for Celebrity Fit Club. That one time she dropped a wagonload of fat on that liquid protein diet and squeezed into the tiny jeans, she looked sickly and...un-Oprah. By her own admission, that size lasted exactly two days. She celebrated that round of severe dieting by going on an eating binge.

We never expect Oprah to compete looks and size-wise with Katie Couric (gym-thin with impressively well-toned biceps), Diane Sawyer (size 4 and mysteriously line-free) or former NBC reporter and longtime Oprah friend Maria Shriver (so gaunt her flesh strains against coathanger jawbones). And we certainly don't want her to look as freakishly unfed as Barbara Walters (dangerously doddery) or former talk show queen Joan Rivers (who has joked about her many procedures, "one more facelift and I'll have a goatee").

And God forbid, Oprah does to herself what Star Jones did, losing weight so quickly (with surgical help), she ended up looking gaunt and obese at the same time.

Oprah's our gal, our best friend, our sistah who will succumb to some midnight fistfuls of cookie dough from time to time. So she's put on a pound or 40. There are plenty of reasons for stress-eating when you're running a media empire, hosting a daily show and getting a black Democratic president elected.

She said she wants to lose 20 pounds before Inauguration Day, Jan. 20. That's about five weeks from now. Yeah, right.

The problem with Oprah's weight gain is that Oprah thinks it's a problem. She can go on and on about how she wants to be "healthy" and "fit" and "live her best life" with the help of "The Secret" and not just reach some magical goal weight. But don't we get a sense from her public shame about her yo-yo dieting that there are other subplots at play? Because really, who cares if Oprah gets fat? Oprah was popular when she was pushing 275 and she'll be popular when she's back down to 140.

The real issue is why Oprah finds it necessary to keep undergoing massive makeovers. Wasn't it just a month or two ago she went on that trendy cleanse diet, foreswearing caffeine, alcohol, sugar, wheat and dairy for a full 21 days? What a strange stunt (which she blogged about on Oprah.com). After three weeks consuming nothing but lawn clippings and spring water, who wouldn't reach for mac and cheese? With a margarita chaser.   

Oprah tries one thing and then another and not just with dieting--she goes through spiritual advisers that way a fat kid goes through a bag of Oreos. Oprah's always unsatisfied with some aspect of herself and that's the real concern here.

As Dr. Drew Pinsky would say, she needs to deal with the "chaos" before she can deal with the weight. Pinsky, the wise radio-TV doc who counsels addicts of all stripes, often says that sexual abuse in childhood can have longlasting repercussions. Oprah has spoken on her show and written about being molested by a family member as a child, raped later on and becoming pregnant as a teenager. If chaotic, traumatic events such as these aren't dealt with through extensive therapy--and not the kind that includes spa massage--an adult often will carry shame and self-hatred into adulthood, and spin it into problems with alcoholism, drug addiction, sexual addiction and, yes, food addiction.

Not to play armchair shrink, but maybe Oprah's tendency to pack on pounds, even while preaching health and fitness to her audience, is her way of protecting her inner child. She builds a mighty fortress around her feelings, stuffing down the "chaos" with fine food and good wine.

Look, we need to stop expecting this woman to be perfect and subjecting her to unreal expectations about physical beauty. There's no reason someone as accomplished, respected, even adored, as Oprah Winfrey should ever feel "less than" because she can't wear sample sizes from designers. There's no designer in the world who wouldn't beg to whip up a size 14 frock for the most powerful woman in media. And no one at those inaugural balls will be anything but wowed by the sight of TV's reigning goddess, no matter what she's wearing in whatever size.

Remember that story about editor Anna Wintour (herself a "lollipop" who's all head atop scrawn) telling Oprah she had to lose 20 pounds before she could be on the cover of Vogue a few years ago?  The nerve. As it is, some might say there's not enough Oprah to go around. What wonderful revenge it would be if now Oprah would tell Anna to gain 20 so she could be in an issue of O.

The New Year will dawn with Oprah launching a new diet-and-exercise plan on her show. She'll invite everyone in the TV universe to take part and later in the year, probably during sweeps, she'll have success stories parade across her stage in skinny glory. (Remember how she did that with Kirstie Alley? And how quickly Kirstie ballooned up right after? So much for "calling Jenny.")

But the cycle of gaining and losing needs to end soon if Oprah truly wants to live her own "best life." if she really wants to conquer the fat monster that keeps sneaking the weight back on her, Oprah needs seriously to look at dealing with some of that "chaos" that she's never come to terms with. She can hire all the chefs, trainers and motivators in the world. She can even starve down into those size 10 jeans again. But it won't last until she comes to terms with the heavy stuff stuck deep down inside.

To borrow a phrase from Weight Watchers: The problem is not what Oprah's eating; it's what eating her.

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This post originally appeared at JackMyers.com.

Comments

[FdeBear]

Hey! Wouldn't this be a great time to bring Menopause out of the closet?

Lovingly,
The Grand Worthy Matron

[argyle]

Oprah is a television personality. Her adventures with weight are her brand. If Oprah had one spiritual adviser and one diet we wouldn't know who she is. Don't confuse television for real life.

[benne]

Excellent analysis. Everyone talks as if they know the "real" Oprah: eating up her propaganda, but of course, that's exactly why she can sell so much. We'll even like her better after all this because we feel that we know just how vulnerable she is.

[jbgnyc]

When Oprah launched her show way back when, Parade magazine sent me out to interview her. Judging by photos of us, she's my height: 5'51/2-5'6. She was starting to put on weight then and we talked about it. She said she wanted to see if a woman on TV could put on 50 pounds and still be a star. She proved she could do it. Then she proved she could undo it. But why at this late date the need to to "do" or "prove" anything? I won't try to get into her head. But, clearly, some unresolved need to control continues to operate here. Recalling the smart, funny, open woman I met back then, I have to agree with Oprah's recent quote: "I never thought I'd still be talking about my weight." The question, Oprah, is, why?

[dessertsfirst]

All of a sudden, everybody is a shrink.

[vets74]

I been on a post-Thanksgiving diet for a couple weeks. Waist blew up to 4-inches above what my closet wants. Can't shrink worth a damn....

[poomplet]

THANK YOU!!!

I was watching Mike & Juliet the other day, and they referred to O's problem as a "battle with food addiction" and with a level of gravity I'd expect if she was diagnosed w/breast cancer. Then...here in the HuffPo , Deborah King echoes the same exact term & then goes on to talk about...I kid you not...how this relates to her "fifth chakra".

Oprah herself is treating this like a grave disease...it's just awful. Her massive congregation...er, audience...will seize on this attitude& apply it their own weight problems. The results will be starvation diets, more and more dubious use of gastric bypass, people failing to take responsibility for their habits & actions because it's a "disease". If Oprah can't do it with personal trainers & private nutritioni­sts/chefs.­..how on earth are her worshipers going to cope?

She's a big gal; always was, always will be...it's clearly largely genetic. It's OK for people like that to be reasonably big if they keep their cholesterol & blood pressure in check & don't go into the level of obesity/morbid obesity.

She should figure out what her "real" weight should be...maybe 10-20 less than where she is now...achieve it, and then say, "this is who I am...this is how I should look". Of course, that won't happen...and the result will be MORE devastating than when rail thin starlets/models complain about being too fat & cause thousands of impressionable teens to become anorexic/bulemic.

[Robin1]

I think it gets easy to surround yourself with a lot of "yes" people when you're Oprah. My trainer doesn't care how much I complain, his motto is "I don't care about your feelings." You can tell that all the people around Oprah pussyfoot around and so the real truth doesn't emerge until no one can hide it from her anymore. Oprah's amazing but, like all of us, she has real issues and if she wants to lose weight, she'll have to deal with it in a real way.

[Newrinkles]

Oprah has a problem just like everyone else when it comes to the body set point

http://www.newrinkles.com/index.php/archive/the-411-on-weight-loss-and-the-body-weight-set-point/

and it doesn't matter how much money she's got, there's apparently nothing that's going to change it.

[HelenBach]

Oprah needs to hang out with Queen Latifah and get a little of that 'yeah I'm hot - what?' from her.

[dessertsfirst]

That's the best advice I've seen yet.
Not only is everybody all of a sudden a shrink, all the experts, and health nuts, and foodies and who knows what, are all coming out of the woodwork, and from underneath all the rocks... they're all piling on. Gross! Just let her BE!

[Dr. Judith Rich - Huffpost Blogger]

You know,

I've been thinking the EXACT same thing about Oprah. Who hasn't seen those extra folds on her for most of the past year? But more than that, who cares?

It's not "we" who expect "her" to be a size 8. She can weigh whatever she wants to weigh and we'll love her. Especially since she helped elect our new president. That woman is pure gold! What's gold going for these days? How much an ounce? Oprah's worth a mint! Fabulous!

No, Oprah has some deeply unresolved stuff inside that keeps her from being at peace with herself. Your article mentions many of them. The body weight helps her distance herself from these buried feelings.

I love Oprah. But it must be hard to be her. She seems to be always on the "prove it" channel. She's a symbol for female empowerment, success, enlightenment, courage, integrity, spirituality. It has to be hard to always, always walk that talk and never let your hair down.

So food becomes a mechanism for being "bad". She can be bad around food, but not be condemned for it. Except by herself, of course. Getting and staying fit just becomes another means of proving herself.

I say, give it up Oprah! Life's too short to live in self-condemnation. There's still work to be done to love yourself just as you are. Imagine that, folks! If Oprah still has work to do, imagine the rest of us.

[Grulg]

Ummmm, Oprah is 5-5 or 5-6 Max. Try again.

[weeklyworldnews]

fat or not.. Oprah's still on top of the world!

HA - she can hang with the World's Fattest cat..

http://www.weeklyworldnews.com/celebs/oprah-leans-on-worlds-fattest-cat/

[Midasgurl]

Why can't Oprah just accept that the reason we love her isn't because of her looks, but because of who she is? So what if she eats unhealthy every now and then? Why is that such a sin in her world? You mean she's so upset she is such a perfectionist in all other areas yet she can't nail this one down? Come on Oprah, God does have a sense of humor you know. If you were to be completely perfect, then you might be out of a job. Remember people love to hate perfect people!