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U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. posted to social media, “Dear Oprah, Yes, you were overeating! For years! And it wasn’t some mystical ‘obesity gene’ puppeteering your fork. It was your choices.”
The post was authentic, but it was made by a “commentary account” that identified itself as having “no affiliation to the real RFKJR.”
Rumors spread online in late January 2026 that U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made a social media post about media mogul Oprah Winfrey’s eating habits.
Users on social media platforms, particularly on X (archived, archived, archived), claimed Kennedy criticized a recent statement made by Winfrey during a talk show appearance in which she discussed her previous misconceptions around struggles with her relationship to food and weight loss. Many users sharing the purported post celebrated it as authentically from Kennedy.
The full post (archived) in question read:
Dear Oprah, yes, you were overeating! For years! And it wasn’t some mystical “obesity gene” puppeteering your fork. It was your choices. Stop selling surrender as science. Our kids deserve the truth that real change starts with personal accountability, not excuses. MAHA
“MAHA” referred to Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” HHS slogan.
Dear Oprah,
Yes, you were overeating!
For years!
And it wasn’t some mystical “obesity gene” puppeteering your fork.
It was your choices.
Stop selling surrender as science.
Our kids deserve the truth that real change starts with personal accountability, not excuses.
— ⁿᵉʷˢ Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (@RobertKennedyJc) January 15, 2026
The post came from an X user whose account was clearly labeled a “commentary account” and stated in its bio, “MAHA News/No affiliation to the real RFKJR.” Therefore, we have rated this claim as being incorrectly attributed to Kennedy.
A search of Kennedy’s official HHS Secretary X account, his personal X account and the HHS account returned no results for the post criticizing Winfrey.
The post was made in response to Winfrey’s Jan. 14, 2026, appearance on “The View” in which she discussed her history struggling with her weight and dieting. The interview is viewable on YouTube and Winfrey’s comments can be viewed around the 3:20 time stamp. She said:
All these years, I thought I was overeating. I was standing there with all the food noise — what I ate, what I should eat, how many calories was that, how long is it gonna take. I thought that that was because of me and my fault. Now I understand that if you carry the obesity gene, if that is what you have, that is what makes you overeat. You don’t overeat and become obese. Obesity causes you to overeat. Obesity causes you to have all of that food noise. And what the GLP-1s have done for me, and I know a number of other people, is to quiet that noise.
Winfrey’s mention of “GLP-1s” referred to medications such as Ozempic, which Winfrey started taking in 2023 according to a feature in People magazine. Winfrey’s comments to People mirrored what she said on “The View”: “Obesity is a disease. It’s not about willpower — it’s about the brain.”
In 2024, The Associated Press reported Winfrey was leaving the board of dieting company Weight Watchers, a position she held since 2015. During a March 15, 2024 appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” viewable on YouTube, Winfrey said she left Weight Watchers because she “did not want the appearance of any conflict of interest.” She added, “I resigned from the board and I donated all my shares to the National Museum of African American History and Culture.”
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Joey Esposito
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