Kudos to Oprah

Most days I don’t watch The Oprah Winfrey Show, but yesterday I was interested in the episode because it featured Oprah discussing her battle with weight. I’d read a piece she’d written for O magazine about how she had gained 40 pounds and was so disappointed she was still talking about her weight. (You can read more about it here.)

I appreciated her candor in discussing her battle with weight, her struggles with emotional eating, self-esteem and how she’d completely taken herself off her own to-do list.

A publicity stunt? Well, I suppose some cynical folks might say that. But I can’t imagine many women who would want to share how much they weigh, how they feel about themselves and what sizes they have in their closet with a national audience. So, I give Oprah credit for addressing an issue that thousands of women face daily. Who hasn’t made a commitment to start exercising and then skipped a few too many gym sessions? Who hasn’t committed to making more time for yourself and then found you had no time for anything you wanted to do?

While I might not always agree with all of Oprah’s beliefs, I admire her for all she’s done, her charity and her ability to rise from humble beginnings to make something of herself. She’s one of the few celebrities I’d really like to meet.

“Falling off the wagon,” as Oprah puts it, happens to all of us. I’m just glad People magazine isn’t there to document it.