Stop shaming the choices of others, regardless of the path they choose
Aos 71 anos, Oprah Winfrey tornou público o que muitos vivem em silêncio: interrompeu o uso de medicamentos para perda de peso em 2025, recuperou nove quilos, e escolheu narrar essa experiência não como fracasso, mas como evidência de que a obesidade é uma condição médica — não uma falha de caráter. Sua franqueza, documentada no livro 'Enough', chega num momento em que os medicamentos da classe GLP-1 redefinem o debate sobre corpo, saúde e responsabilidade individual, convidando a cultura a revisar o peso moral que impõe sobre escolhas terapêuticas.
- Após perder 23 kg com injeções de emagrecimento desde 2023, Oprah decidiu pausar o tratamento em 2025 para provar que conseguiria manter o peso só com exercício e força de vontade — e o experimento falhou.
- O apetite e o que ela chama de 'ruído mental da comida' voltaram com força, e nove quilos foram recuperados em poucos meses, confirmando exatamente o que os céticos haviam previsto.
- Em vez de silenciar a experiência, Winfrey a transformou em argumento público: a obesidade exige tratamento contínuo como qualquer outra condição crônica, e interromper a medicação tem consequências fisiológicas, não morais.
- Com o livro 'Enough', escrito com a médica Ania M. Jastreboff, ela amplia o debate para além de si mesma, pedindo que se encerre a cultura de vergonha em torno das escolhas de tratamento para o peso.
Oprah Winfrey passou grande parte de sua vida pública em conflito com o próprio peso. Mas foi em 2023, aos 70 anos e pesando cerca de 107 quilos, que ela começou a usar medicamentos injetáveis para emagrecimento — e perdeu 23 quilos nos dois anos seguintes. Então, em 2025, tomou uma decisão deliberada: pausar o tratamento.
A razão era quase uma provocação a si mesma. Ela queria provar, especialmente aos céticos, que conseguiria manter os resultados apenas com exercícios e disciplina. Passou a fazer caminhadas, intensificou os treinos e esperou. O que aconteceu foi previsível: o peso voltou. Primeiro devagar, depois com mais força. Em poucos meses, eram nove quilos a mais — e, junto com eles, o que ela descreve como o 'ruído constante da comida', aquela negociação interna e exaustiva com a fome que a medicação havia silenciado.
O que torna o relato de Winfrey significativo não é a recuperação de peso em si — isso é comum entre quem interrompe esses medicamentos. É a forma como ela escolheu enquadrá-la. Sem vergonha, sem pedido de desculpas. Para ela, a obesidade é uma condição médica que requer tratamento contínuo, da mesma forma que diabetes ou hipertensão. A falha moral, argumenta, não está em usar medicação — está na cultura que trata essa escolha como fraqueza.
'Independentemente do caminho que você escolha, tudo que peço é que paremos de envergonhar as escolhas alheias', disse ela. Documentada no livro 'Enough', escrito com a médica Ania M. Jastreboff, essa declaração chega num momento em que os medicamentos GLP-1 ganham espaço e legitimidade — e figuras públicas começam, finalmente, a falar sobre eles sem eufemismos.
Oprah Winfrey, now 71, has spent much of her public life wrestling with her weight. But in recent months, she has become unusually direct about how she has done it—and what happens when she stops. In an interview on the Today show, the broadcaster explained that she began using injectable weight-loss medications in 2023, when she weighed roughly 107 kilograms. Over the following two years, the drugs helped her shed 23 kilograms. Then, in 2025, she made a deliberate choice to pause the treatment.
Her reasoning was straightforward, if somewhat defiant. She wanted to test whether she could maintain her weight loss through exercise and willpower alone. "I wanted to show them," she said, referring to skeptics who had warned her the weight would return the moment she stopped taking the medication. She began hiking, intensified her workouts, and waited to see what would happen.
What happened was predictable, and she has now documented it in her new book, "Enough," written with physician Ania M. Jastreboff. The weight came back. Not all at once, but steadily. A kilogram and a half. Then two and a half. Then ten. Within months, she had regained nine kilograms, and something else had returned too—what she describes as the constant, exhausting mental noise of food. Before the medication, she lived with what she calls the "noise of eating," a relentless internal distraction, a perpetual negotiation with hunger and desire. The drugs had quieted that noise. Without them, it roared back.
What makes Winfrey's disclosure notable is not that she regained weight—that is, by most accounts, a common experience among people who stop taking these medications. What matters is how she has chosen to frame it. She does not present her weight loss as a personal triumph of discipline, nor her weight regain as a personal failure. Instead, she describes obesity itself as a medical condition, one that requires treatment the way diabetes or hypertension requires treatment. In her telling, the shame and judgment that surround weight and weight-loss choices are the real problem, not the choices themselves.
"Regardless of the path you choose, all I ask is that we stop shaming the choices of others," she said. It is a simple statement, but it carries weight in a culture that has long treated obesity as a moral failing, a sign of weakness or lack of discipline. Winfrey's willingness to speak openly about using medication, to admit that the medication worked, and to acknowledge that stopping it led to weight regain—without apologizing for any of it—represents a shift in how at least some public figures are willing to discuss these drugs and the conditions they treat.
She does not express regret about pausing the medication, even though the experiment failed by its own terms. She wanted to prove something to the doubters, and instead she proved their point. But she seems to have learned something else in the process: that the real issue is not whether someone uses medication to manage their weight, but whether we can finally stop treating that choice as something to be ashamed of.
Notable Quotes
I wanted to show them I could do it through exercise alone, but the weight came back, and so did the constant distraction of thinking about food— Oprah Winfrey, on pausing weight-loss medication
Obesity is a medical condition that needs to be treated, and we need to stop shaming people for how they choose to treat it— Oprah Winfrey, in her new book 'Enough'
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why did she stop taking the medication if it was working so well?
She wanted to test herself—to see if she could maintain the weight loss through exercise alone. It was partly about proving the skeptics wrong, the people who said she'd gain it all back the moment she stopped.
And she did gain it back.
She did. Nine kilograms in a matter of months. But what's interesting is that she doesn't seem to view that as a failure on her part. She's framing it as evidence that obesity is a medical condition, not a character flaw.
So the experiment actually proved the opposite of what she intended?
In a way, yes. But she's reframed what that means. Instead of "I failed to keep the weight off," the message is "this is what happens when you remove medical treatment from a medical condition."
Is she saying people shouldn't stop taking these medications?
Not exactly. She's saying people should stop judging each other for whatever choice they make—whether that's taking the medication, stopping it, or never taking it at all. The shame is the real problem.
That's a significant shift for someone who built a career partly on self-improvement narratives.
It is. She's essentially saying: yes, I used medication, yes, it worked, yes, I stopped it, yes, I gained weight back. And none of that is something I need to apologize for or hide.