Nothing has been more earthshaking than the meteoric rise of GLP-1 drugs for weight loss in the health industry — except perhaps one woman: Oprah Winfrey.
Just when we thought weight loss meds had hit Peak Hype, Winfrey has entered the chat, releasing her latest book, “Enough: Your Health, Your Weight, and What It’s Like To Be Free,” cowritten with Dr. Ania Jastreboff. The book catalogs her seemingly on-again, off-again, now committed relationship to the medication, starting in 2023.
It also comes after her full-throated endorsement of the medications. Winfrey’s embrace of GLP-1s signals a decisive shift away from willpower-based weight loss and toward a medical model that is defining the American wellness zeitgeist.
“She’s giving people permission to talk about it,” said Dr. Holly Wyatt, an endocrinologist who specializes in weight management and metabolism. “It validates what the doctors and scientists have been saying for years, but Oprah brought it to the public in a way that people really heard it.”
How Oprah remains a weight loss icon
Winfrey secured her status as a health authority from early in her career with a unique empathy toward personal weight loss stories.
Her eponymous talk show provided a rare safe space for overweight people to open up about their experiences, said Sabrina Strings, author of “Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia.”
“It was probably the only place you could go in public and not be shamed as long as you were repentant,” she told Business Insider.
A key part of the weight-loss narratives on her show — including Winfrey’s own experience — is the redemption arc, Strings said, offering a vulnerable perspective on how people felt about gaining and losing weight.
That’s particularly poignant in a time when celebs like Serena Williams, Lizzo, and Queen Latifah once pushed back against body shaming — but have lately been called out for promoting weight loss products or routines. Black women have been a particular audience for this new era of marketing, Strings wrote in her blog.
Winfrey has spent decades leveraging her business savvy to make her personal struggle a source of strength and profit.
“She’s open in saying ‘I want to be thin and I have a path to do that,'” Strings said. “That’s why she remains an icon for weight loss in the age of Ozempic.”
Driving the ‘Wagon of Fat’
Three moments explain why Winfrey still moves the weight-loss market. It started with a little red wagon.
In 1988, Winfrey made TV history by sharing her recent weight loss, represented by 67 pounds of animal fat in a Radio Flyer, in the most-watched episode of the already hit show (even beating out later career-highlight interviews with Michael Jackson and Meghan Markle).
In response, liquid diets saw unprecedented success as viewers reached for the products Winfrey credited for helping her shed the pounds. It was an early instance of the “Oprah Effect” that appearing on her show or among her recommendations could lead to almost overnight success.
Decades later, Oprah said the wagon of fat was one of her biggest regrets, and apologized for what she described as her role in shame-centered diet culture.
Dr. Oz makes the mainstream
Starting around 2004, a charismatic heart surgeon, Dr. Mehmet Oz, began appearing on Oprah’s show.
Across more than 50 episodes (and later his own show backed by Oprah’s production company), Oz solidified the “Ask a Doctor” era of TV as audiences clamored for the MD’s advice on everything from supplements to cancer risk.
He also courted controversy over the years through lucrative partnerships with questionable weight-loss products and through hotly criticized statements about COVID-19.
Oz is now the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, appointed to the position by President Donald Trump shortly after the 2024 election.
‘I Love Bread:’ the WeightWatchers era (and breakup)
In the mid-2010s, Winfrey took on a new role as defender of our right to enjoy carbs.
As keto and Atkins diets were exploding in popularity, she backed WeightWatchers, snapping up 10% of shares and becoming the face of the company in an ad proclaiming her love of bread.
SNL and other internet parodies had a field day, but WeightWatchers, then struggling to compete in an increasingly competitive industry, increased its value by 1200% over the subsequent three years.
It wasn’t happily ever after, however. Winfrey announced she was leaving WeightWatchers in 2024. Stocks immediately tumbled by 25%.
It seemed to signal a dramatic pivot from old-school American weight loss plans full of calorie-counting and color-coding — ushering in the new Age of GLP-1s.
A messy situationship turned into a commitment with GLP-1s
Even while she was with WeightWatchers, Winfrey was already starting her next big love affair in the health industry.
In 2023, she announced publicly that she had used GLP-1s to lose weight and spoke out about the misconception that medication is somehow a shortcut or easy way out.
The moment coincided with widespread acceptance of Wegovy, Zepound, and their cohort in the mainstream. As many as one in eight Americans had tried the drugs at some point, embracing the idea that biological “food noise” and processed food — not a lack of discipline — can drive us to overeat.
Since then, Winfrey has wrestled with the notion that weight loss or maintenance is about willpower. Late last year, she shared her experience quitting medication through 2025, to see if she could keep her weight stable with lifestyle changes. She said she regained 20 pounds.
Now 71, Winfrey is back on the drugs and considers them a lifelong routine similar to high-blood pressure medication. Her one regret, she said, is not finding GLP-1s sooner.
Now that the Oprah Effect and GLP-1s have converged, the world will be watching for Version 2.0 — the next generation of GLP-1s in pill form or with even more benefits not just for weight but potentially longevity and brain health, too.
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