Oprah Winfrey appears to be making good on her promise to continue the conversation about weight loss, despite stepping down from WeightWatchers’ board of directors last week.
The billionaire has announced that she is releasing a TV special with ABC on March 18 called “An Oprah Special: Shame, Blame and the Weight Loss Revolution” where she will host “a sit-down conversation around the radical impact of prescription weight loss medications in the primetime event,” according to a press release.
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“It is a very personal topic for me and for the hundreds of millions of people impacted around the globe who have for years struggled with weight and obesity,” said Oprah in the press release. “This special will bring together medical experts, leaders in the space and people in the day-to-day struggle to talk about health equity and obesity with the intention to ultimately release the shame, judgment and stigma surrounding weight.”
During the special, Oprah will be speaking in front of a live studio audience and will address questions such as the short-term and long-term effects of weight loss drugs, and the shame surrounding its use. The special will also be released on Hulu a day after it airs on ABC
The move from Oprah comes after WeightWatchers (WW) announced on Feb. 28 that she was stepping down from its board, and part of her reasoning for resigning was “to eliminate any perceived conflict of interest around her taking weight loss medications.”
After Oprah revealed in an interview with People Magazine last year in December that she was taking an unspecified weight loss drug to help her reach her goal of 160 lbs, she faced backlash from fans who highlighted that she previously claimed that taking weight loss drugs was “the easy way out.”
“Shouldn't we all just be more accepting of whatever body you choose to be in? That should be your choice,” she said during a panel in September. “Even when I first started hearing about the weight loss drugs, at the same time I was going through knee surgery, and I felt, ‘I’ve got to do this on my own. Because if I take the drug, that’s the easy way out.'”
The demand for GLP-1 medications such as Ozempic, Wegovy etc., which are used to treat diabetes, has skyrocketed over the past few years due to its weight loss effects.
Novo Nordisk (NVO) , the company who manufactures these medications, revealed in its annual report for 2023 that demand for its GLP-1 medications is “soaring, driven by a global obesity epidemic and exceptional growth in the GLP-1 market,” which has led to supply constraints.
“We are significantly ramping up production capacity and have introduced clear prioritization principles to ensure broad and equitable distribution of our products,” reads the report.
Novo Nordisk’s sales in the U.S. even increased by 50% for the entire year of 2023.
The company is now in the early stages of developing a weight loss pill that is taken once a day. Novo Nordisk recently revealed to investors that during the clinical trials, the pill helped patients drop 13% of their weight over 12 weeks, yielding stronger results than its Wegovy GLP-1 medication.
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