Oprah Winfrey says taking weight loss drugs has changed her opinion of ‘thin people’

Oprah Winfrey is opening up about the impact of taking weight loss drugs on her perspective of “thin people.” During a conversation with Dr Ania Jastreboff on The Oprah Podcast, the 70-year-old admitted that GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy had changed her opinion of thin people.

Oprah Winfrey admits taking weight loss drugs has changed her opinion of ‘thin people’

“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—had more willpower,” Winfrey said. She revealed that earlier, she used to believe that “they ate better foods” and were able to stick to their diets “longer.”

The Oscar winner confessed that she believed thin people “never had a potato chip.” However, it was when she began taking weight loss drugs that she realised her beliefs were far from the truth. “And then I realized the very first time I took the GLP-1 that they’re not even thinking about it,” Winfrey said of those people and food.

The Color Purple star shared that after she started taking GLP-1, she realised that “willpower” was an absence of “food noise,” a term she uses to refer to intrusive thoughts related to hunger. “They’re eating when they’re hungry and they’re stopping when they’re full,” Winfrey said.

However, such a mentality does not work for those with “obesity,” according to the talk show host. Elsewhere in the interview, Winfrey reflected on her weight loss journey and the mental trauma she received from tabloids over her physique. “Every week [I was] exploited by the tabloids,” she said.

Winfrey went on to say, “Anytime any comedian wanted to make fun or make a joke about it, they would make a joke about it. And I accepted it because I thought I deserved it,” “I had an awareness of [weight loss] medications [before], but felt I had to prove I had the willpower to do it. I now no longer feel that way,” she added,