We Share Your Loss, And Your Gain

In the January issue of her magazine, media mogul Oprah Winfrey writes about coming to terms with a 40-pound weight gain over the last several years that has pushed her up to 200 pounds. To illustrate her heft, she appears on the cover of O, the Oprah Magazine in a profoundly unflattering purple tracksuit -- almost as if she is doing aesthetic penance for allowing herself to stray so far from the fundamentals of healthy eating and regular workouts.

To add further torment, her heavier self is juxtaposed with an older image of a svelter, cocksure Winfrey wearing white -- white! -- workout clothes and baring an abdomen that looks so toned one could bounce a quarter off it.

Winfrey has spent a lifetime on television getting personal with her audience and revealing intimate information that in an age before talk show confessionals, inappropriately loud cellphone conversations and Facebook photos was reserved for close friends. We, the people, have lived through Winfrey's weight-loss struggles. Her marathon was our marathon. We were her million-plus support system of chronic snackers who empathized as she wrestled her mashed-potato demons.

When she not only lost the weight but also seemed to gain the upper hand in her relationship with food, we applauded. With the help of fitness guru Bob Greene, she seemed happy and healthy and a long way from that weight loss stunt in the '80s that had her pulling a wagon of fat behind her as she unveiled a flaccid liquid-diet body that had been poured into a pair of Calvin Klein jeans. This last time, Winfrey had lost weight the honest way: with exercise, a healthy diet . . . a personal trainer, a chef and an enormous fan base cheering her on.

But a couple of years ago, everyone knew something was up. The weight was creeping back and the gossips were whispering.

Sympathetic viewers noticed Winfrey was looking bigger but hesitated to make much of it because everyone knows how TV adds 15 pounds and, frankly, who knows how many pounds a wide-screen, high-definition TV could pack on. And then Winfrey shared news of thyroid troubles and how the condition slowed her metabolism. That could account for some of the weight gain. But was something else going on?

Winfrey always told her audience that all she wanted was to feel good about her body and look good in a pair of designer jeans. Not size 0, necessarily, but an 8 would be nice. She was simply aiming for a body that was normal, medium, unremarkable.

How can ordinary be so hard to achieve?

In an essay, Winfrey admits to letting her schedule spiral out of control and turning to food for comfort. She said she was embarrassed by her weight gain and having to face millions of viewers -- and readers -- in a body that she did not like. She was frustrated and exasperated. Like a lot of folks who have dieted away the pounds only to find that somehow they have stealthily returned, Winfrey felt she had failed.

The acknowledgment of her weight gain has been greeted in the media like a shocking revelation. But Winfrey wasn't telling us anything that we hadn't already observed, and her experience was far from unique.

Weight gain is common when celebrities aren't working on a big project. Apparently, the moment a film wraps, a lot of actors run to the closest Fatburger, where they settle in until their agent calls. Who can blame them? The word "starlet" might as well be Hollywood-speak for "hungry."

There's an unhealthy amount of schadenfreude when it comes to celebrity weight gains. Popular culture paints their lives as charmed: millions for movies, free clothes, borrowed jewelry and a community of trainers, personal chefs and nutritionists bearing secret potions to transform them into gods and goddesses.

We are inundated with images of actresses who give birth to twins in May and pose surfside in a bikini by July. Weight loss seems so easy -- so magical -- for celebrities. We don't see the struggle and the sweat. We get the fairy tales of 40 pounds lost and an abdomen carved into a six-pack with nothing more than breast-feeding and yoga twice a week.

Even on a television show like "The Biggest Loser," in which trainer Jillian yells at obese contestants like a rabid drill sergeant, the truth is that the challenge of weight loss is compressed into little more than 15 or 20 minutes with the rest of the time dedicated to overly dramatic weigh-ins, contestant conniving and fat porn -- those leering close-ups of out-of-shape bodies.

But Winfrey is a different kind of celebrity. She was not dieting to prepare for a big nude scene in a film. She wasn't prepping to wear hot pants in a music video. She was neither Janet Jackson nor Demi Moore out to wow people with the abs of an Olympian and thighs that make other women weep with envy.

Winfrey wanted ease and satisfaction in the fitting room. There's no joy in watching someone strive for that -- again and again -- and fail.

Still, during the heady, Greene days of her thinner self, it was easy to get annoyed with Winfrey. She exuded confidence that she'd practically solved the obesity conundrum. She talked up her personal story; she trotted out her experts. Winfrey made folks think that if they just believed in themselves and their self-worth, a pair of 7 for All Mankind jeans -- say, waist size 29 or 30 -- were in the offing.

Like a lot of recent converts, she was at times overbearing. Some of her Dr. Oz shows -- steeped in graphic displays of hardened arteries and protruding omentums -- have been enough to make one want to graze through a package of Oreos just out of rebellion.

But ultimately what makes Winfrey's tale of weight loss and gain so compelling is that it's so common. She may sell a million books with a nod of her head, hand out scholarships and cars, build schools and houses, but she hasn't been able to maintain a healthy weight. Winfrey inspires her fans in part because she makes extraordinary accomplishments look possible. But as her weight continues to yo-yo, she confirms what folks have always suspected: Just being average can be quite a challenge, too.