I put this quote on my twitter yesterday and someone replied saying “Oprah is the poster child of diet culture. Great quote. Horrible person”. Let’s discuss.
Do I hate Oprah’s association with Weight Watchers? Yes.
Does that make her a horrible person? No.
I believe in taking what you can learn from a person and leave the rest. Oprah has taught me a lot, from when I was 9 years old and found my mum’s boxset of her show and if I had chosen to stop learning from her the moment I saw her weight watcher’s association, it would not have affected her. It would have been my loss. I would have lost out on learnings that I continue to receive through her words, books and especially her super soul Sunday’s. So what changed when she associated with weight watchers? I stopped taking her advice on body image, and in my opinion, she’s lost credibility when it comes to that aspect.
Diet culture isn’t the only thing I don’t agree with her on. I also don’t like the religious content but I am flexible enough to replace “God” with “universe” and make it work. As humans, it would be impossible to agree on everything but it’s ok to see someone as a leader, educator or expert in one area but not another.
I also believe that a bad behaviour doesn’t make a bad person. I don’t believe in labelling people as “bad” or “good” because I think everyone is trying their best. It’s a shame that Oprah doesn’t know about body positivity or taken the effort to learn about it but I can’t hate someone for being entrenched in diet culture, and I can’t force anyone to be interested in a topic because I’m passionate about it. We all grew up in a culture where that is the norm so my predominant feeling is sadness. I believe she is one of the most powerful people in the world, but she diminishes her power by limiting herself by how much she weighs.
Maybe that makes me more trusting than most.
Maybe that makes me more hopeful than most.
All I know is you can learn from anyone. And I never want to cut myself off from the potential of learning. Even if it means learning by doing the opposite #ScarredNotScared