I wish more celebrites would say "none of your damned business" when asked about their weight control efforts. They're not obligated to share their salaries and financial planning strategies with their fans, and their diet and exercise should be just as off-limits. If celebrities want to share, that's their choice, but the idea that they're obligated to or that they're obligated to share only certain opinions because they're seen as role models is just ridiculous to me.

It's hard enough having friends and family meddling in your weight loss without having to hear it from millions of people. No matter what you do, knowing that millions of people are commenting about it to your face and behind your back, "I'm focusing on health and happiness," probably is just a diplomatic way of saying "butt the heck out of my personal life. This time I'm keeping my efforts or lack of them to myself. This is none of your business."

The idea that celebrities are obligated to open up every bit of their personal struggles to the world, and are obligated to be superhuman with no visible weaknesses because people choose to see them as role models, is just totally messed up.

Yes- for Oprah it is not betwee her and her doctor. She has made a life by putting herself out there for the public to look up to and admire. By doing that she has an obligation to be an example fo people. By stating that she is not going to concern herself with the number she may have an affect on others who may need to pay attention to that numbe. The number that you are on the scale has a direct influence on your "health and happiness".

I agree that celebrities shouldn't have to bare their souls or their bodies (metaphorically or physically) to the world, but once they do go public with something, they will always be under scrutiny for it. Once Oprah opened up about her weight and made it a topic of national conversation, she made it acceptable to talk about it, to notice it, to comment on it.

Maybe it shouldn't be that way, but it is--and not just for famous people who have extra weight. Celebrities who've gone public about their drug use, plastic surgeries, or eating disorders are forever after monitored for more signs of past troubles becoming present concerns. Once something's public knowledge, it never becomes private again--even more so if the celebrity in question becomes known for that something, like Oprah Winfrey and her weight-loss shows.

I respect her tremendously for being so open about her weight and her efforts to keep it as she wants it. So much that she's said and done has resonated with me and millions of other people. Even people who have the money for personal trainers, private chefs, and the best home gym in the universe still aren't guaranteed to be willowy--that's the real truth about weight loss, not the stuff sold with unrealistic "before" and "after" pictures in the backs of magazines, and that lesson alone probably saved more people from catastrophe than anything else Oprah's ever done.

I hope that people respect her decision to live life without discussions of her weight. She's asked that the subject be taken off the table and it should be enough; it's not like she's a fitness guru whose livelihood depends on her weight, so there's no reason why her weight should be an issue. But I don't think that will be the case, either in celebrity magazines or around office water coolers, because people will always remember that Oprah show when she came out in size 10 jeans after her liquid diet or the one when she wheeled out a wagon containing the amount of fat she'd lost or the one when she described her most extreme eating habits or low points.

Those of us who aren't famous would still have our weight scrutinized and discussed if we were to say "I'm focusing on health and happiness"; I'm pretty sure that Oprah will still be prone to that same scrutiny. Wrong? Yeah, probably...but unfortunately, weight (at either extreme) is an issue that everyone can readily see and discuss in a way that other private behaviors aren't.

Like it or not, Oprah is like the leader of a cult, she has tremendous power over thousands of people who follow her every movement. The only reason people know so much about her personal life is because she herself put it out there. It's hard to now try and keep private things private, especially being as famous as she is there will always be people leaking her secrets and paps trying to get photos etc.

I think it's great she's doing this. This may be just the change she needs to love herself at any weight, and therefore not obsess about it cause her to gain.

I understand that Oprah wants to shut the door (which she opened) on this topic and the public should give her that much.

I hope that the end of "Oprah" and the beginning of the her new OWN channel takes her out of the public eye enough and restores her so that she is able to focus on a healthy lifestyle that may again lead to healthy weight loss and maintenance which she keeps behind that shut door!!!

I get that the number on the scale should not dictate your happiness level but your happiness level does not change your cholesterol, glucose levels, hormone levels, arthritis, BP rates, muscle tone, etc.


I love Dr. Oz's show. Only excerpts are available on his website.

I totally disagree. She talks about her shoes too, does that mean she would be letting down the world if she wore bad shoes? How about her hair? she's talked about her hair yet I see her in a ponytail sometimes. Is she letting us down then? She talks about her jouney in life and accepting she will never be super skinny without resorting to unhealthy extremes is part of her journey. She is a talk show host not a trainer or diet expert.

I disagree that she opened the conversation on her weight. Any regular ol' fat girl can tell you that just existing as a fat person opens the conversation about your weight. Comics and talk show hosts talked about her weight LONG before she did. If anything, I think she was bullied into talking about her weight and dealing with it publicly. Good for her if she's decided to change her focus and try a new approach. The old one certainly wasn't working and she doesn't owe any random audience member so much that she should sacrifice her own health, mental or physical.

She's an entertainer, not a role model. It's time we all grew up and stopped thinking that fame and fortune somehow make you smarter or better. Everyone has issues. No one is perfect. We all have to fight our own battles.

There's a difference, though, between late-night talk show hosts and comics riffing on some aspect of a person's appearance--they talk about Yao Ming and Danny DeVito for being statistical outliers physically as well--and specifically opening the door to legitimate discussion instead of jokes.

I'm glad that she opened that door, yet I'm certainly not blaming her for wanting to close it now. I'm sure she's a different person now than she was decades ago when she did the Optifast liquid diet. She undoubtedly has different priorities and probably a whole lot more toughness and self-confidence; with greater age comes greater perspective on things like weight and health and beauty.

It's not a matter of believing that she's a role model or that fame and fortune make her smarter and better. On the contrary, I believe she's very much like anyone who's tried her damnedest and still fought the same battle against her weight despite having every advantage that wealth can bring. (How many of us have said, "It'd be easy if I had my own gym/personal chef/personal trainer?" Turns out it's not exactly easy even then.)

But she has made that battle public, just as she's making her decision to declare a detente public. It's going to be talked about. For some people, it's going to be an inspiration to do likewise; for others, it's going to feel sad because they feel they've shared her journey; and for still others, it's something they consider none of their business.

We're on this site because discussing things with others sometimes provides a lot of insight, inspiration, or clarity. Oprah Winfrey did that on a grand scale, discussing her weight and the issues related to it with an audience of millions. She can't un-ring that bell of her weight being a matter of public discourse--but what she can do is no longer participate in such discussions and let it die down to being the province of late-night jokesters and stand-up comedians again--because they're always going to make such jokes...always, always, always.

Although a funny thing has happened...I hear more jokes made about her being fabulously rich, phenomenally powerful, and overwhelmingly generous than I do about her weight these days. Gotta be doing something right if you're the subject of jokes like that.

I don't think it matters who opened the door. Celebrity or not, sharing your life "opening the door" doesn't obligate you to keep it open. I think she has the same right as any citizen to choose to discuss or not, any topic whenever and however she wishes. She can change her mind whenever and however she wishesl

The public does not own the personal lives of celebrities (though there are a lot of people who act as if they do). To some degree, we do own the fame, to a degree, because people can stop paying attention any time they want to, but to feel you have a right to personal information, just because she shared it in the past is just ridiculous.

Even if she were a weight loss guru, and going into retirement or deciding "you know I've just decided that I just don't care if I'm fat or not," is perfectly within her right to do. You can think it's nuts or stupid or even wrong, but to say she's obligated to keep up the fight and to keep us all informed as to her efforts and progress, that's just plain ridiculous.

Absolutely agree with the bolded bit. More power to her for closing the door if that's what she chooses to do.

I guess what I'm saying is that once a celebrity has made something public knowledge, they no longer control what's already come through that once-open door, to further that analogy. People will forever be aware that Starlet A had a problem with drug abuse or that Singer B had weight-loss surgery, so they will always be the subject of some scrutiny for those things. If Starlet A gets fired from a bio-pic, speculation about past addictions will happen; if Singer B gains some weight, it's going to get a spread in a celebrity rag.

It may be ridiculous, but it's also the price of celebrity. It's no different for those who aren't famous, either--it's just that the circle of people who know about the past--who looked through that open door--is smaller. But any social group--an office, a family, a high school class, a guild in an MMORPG--who's gotten a glimpse through others' open doors remembers. They can be asked to treat the now-closed door with courtesy, but they can't be asked to pretend the past never existed.

Someone who hasn't seen me in years may ask me, "Weren't you thin once upon a time?" because...well, I was, and I crowed about it, and I was proud of it. I can say "I prefer not to discuss it now, as I'm focusing on other things," but it doesn't change the fact that for that person, I am still "that chick who used to be fat, then wasn't, and now is fat like whoa." Of course they'll have questions.

Multiply that by millions and you have fame. It's the ugly side of fame, yes, but that's the nature of the beast.

All of your comments are very interesting. I really don't have any feelings one way or the other about Oprah's celebrity status. I don't feel that she owes me (the random viewer, as someone put it), anything at all. Not with regard to weight loss or anything else.

I will just simply miss her as a year-to-year weight loss buddy. Much the same as I would miss my walking partner or this forum if it suddenly closed down and I could no longer come here for comfort and inspiration.