If you watched the Oprah segment about the Geneen Roth book, Women Food and God, you may have seen some changes in the popular talk show host.

I certainly noticed change. Since I am deeply involved with the real change necessary to lose weight permanently, I’ve often prayed Oprah would get it.

The most important part of the show for me was when Oprah admitted she had shamed herself when she ran the January 2009 magazine cover of her “skinny” and “fat” selves.

I remember how much that magazine cover bothered me, especially the headline “How did I let this happen again?” Those words told me she had been living in an unconscious state during her weight gain.

In my newsletter, The Catalyst, I wrote: “as she talked about her food lists of acceptable food and her menus taped to the inside of her kitchen cabinet, I was overwhelmed with sadness.”

I was sad because she was still fighting her body, still operating under the delusion that controlling food was the answer, still trying to summon willpower, which has never solved a weight loss problem permanently and never will.

She said Marianne Williamson had even called her about the magazine cover idea and asked her not to do it. This didn’t surprise me. Marianne Williamson is a spiritual lecturer, teacher and guide. She could see past the physical part of the story, even if Oprah could not. Marianne could see that Oprah’s public display of her weight gain wasn’t honesty, but a public call for humiliation and shame.

Now, Oprah sees she was saying “I deserve shame” with the cover and that it was an act of directing hate into her very body.

That’s what we’ve been trained to believe: that being fat means we deserve shame, blame, excuses, victimhood, humiliation.

This is one of the reasons I do not watch shows like The Biggest Loser and never recommend Weight Watchers to clients. Public humiliation in the form of public weigh-ins are humiliating and demeaning. That type of activity is how we treat cattle. Not people. It is vile.

For human beings, especially those longing for real nurturing and love in the world, a public weigh-in or public judgment of weight is completely dis-empowering.

It’s saying: The scale can judge my value.
It’s saying: I am the number on the scale.
It’s saying: I’m giving my opinion of myself over to other people.
It’s saying: I deserve to have blame driven into my psyche.
It’s saying: I’m a victim.

There is no way this leads to loving ourselves or treating ourselves well. Something as deep and difficult as overeating will only loosen and be released with a tremendous and continuous infusion of love.

In my experience working with thousands of clients over the last 10 years, food issues are always about love. Love lost. Love withheld. Love that fled. Love swallowed and not spoken. Love that never materialized. Love mistakenly defined as food. And needs unmet because we cannot love ourselves.

By refusing to love ourselves and meet our emotional needs, those needs get twisted and most often turn against us. It’s easier to do than you think. When the example of love we see in our lives is “love withheld” by our parents or other influential people, we believe withholding it further from ourselves will move us to action. We believe we were unloved or unaccepted because we are fundamentally “not right”, “not good enough” or undeserving. Staying attached to food and excess weight means we get to hang out in the place where we are “not right”, “not good enough” and undeserving… forever.

Sadly, many of us do choose that path. I say that without blame or shame. I know we do it because we don’t know better. I certainly didn’t know better before I began my weight loss journey. Every year I’ve maintained my weight loss (it’s been 10 years now), hasn’t been luck and it hasn’t been grueling work. It’s just been love.

But it sounds like Oprah has diverted from that path in her journey and, since her voice is big in the world, I hope that means many will hear the message.

As I’ve been saying for years, people ARE getting it.

People are realizing no one can do this for them. It’s not easy but it’s a gift in itself, an opportunity to learn, change and grow. To be fully alive.

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