Last week fashion legend and Vogue editor-in-chief, Anna Wintour, told 60 Minutes that back in 1998 she told Oprah Winfrey to lose 20 pounds in order to be on the cover of the magazine.  She explained,

“It was a very gentle suggestion,” she said, laughing. “I went to Chicago to visit Oprah, and I suggested that it might be an idea that she lose a little bit of weight.  I said simply that you might feel more comfortable. She was a trooper!”

Oprah did heed her advice because when she was on the cover the tagline read: “Oprah! A Major Movie, An Amazing Makeover.”  Wintour continued,

“She totally welcomed the idea, and she went on a very stringent diet and it was one of our most successful covers ever.”

Also in the interview, Wintour defended the use of Photoshop in magazine photos:

“That’s one of the things that makes me rather angry, that I don’t understand,” she said. “That if you look wonderful, does that make you less important? Less powerful? Less serious?”

Wintour did go on to say that more awareness needs to occur in the US in regard to healthy eating and the risks attached to obesity.  She explained,

“I’d just been on a trip to Minnesota, where I can only kindly describe most of the people I saw as little houses.  There’s such an epidemic of obesity in the United States, and for some reason, everybody focuses on anorexia.  We need to spend money time and education on teaching people to eat, exercise and take care of themselves in a healthier way,” she said. “It [has gotten people] provoked, which is really the point.”

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