At the ESSENCE Festival of Culture, during a session called The Change Room, a woman openly shared her painful experience with menopause—beyond hot flashes and weight gain, she spoke of depression and suicidal thoughts, all worsened by the lack of honest conversations and resources. Her story resonated with many in the room, including gynecologist Kelli V. Burroughs, MD, highlighting how unprepared and unsupported many women feel during this stage of life. There isn’t enough information to be prepared. And once you’re in it, no one is talking about it.
So it makes a difference when one of the most visible and familiar faces in Hollywood decides to take up the mantle to talk about it. To enlighten. To empower. Queen Latifah is doing just that, partnering with WeightWatchers to help them as they recently launched their WeightWatchers for Menopause program.
“I think WeightWatchers has already been a brand that’s been synonymous with healthy living with weight loss, but this is greater than just weight loss,” the star tells ESSENCE. What it is, according to the company, is a holistic program that supports women at multiple stages of menopause, including peri, in menopause, and post, helping them get clinical support, figure out methods to manage symptoms, and offer the community needed to never feel alone, which is key to empowerment.
In addition to doing that, Latifah is opening up about her own “journey” with menopause with ESSENCE, because as the women during that conversation in Nawlins reminded me, a support group, whether your close friends or those you find through a program like WeightWatchers for Menopause, is essential to knowing what you’re going through and what you need. And she too, was like the rest of women going through “the change.” She had questions that needed answers. So she went after them.
“As long as we can have access to what we need to take care of ourselves, we’ll be great. We’ll be fine,” Latifah shares. “Actually, we can be even better and thrive through these years, which is what is supposed to happen. We can live more vital, quality lives.”
ESSENCE: To start, how has it been navigating this stage of life with menopause for you?
Queen Latifah: I can’t say it’s been bad at all. I think it’s a journey. And for me, it’s just another step in my healthcare journey, taking care of myself and understanding my body and understanding life. And it is just one more step along the way as far as I see it. Unfortunately, menopause hasn’t been studied enough. It hasn’t been publicized enough. People haven’t been educated enough about it. And so this is where some of the stigma comes in. This is where some of the concern comes in because you’re feeling something that you don’t understand or you don’t know about. You’re not even aware that it’s happening to you. Your body is just changing and you may not even catch it. Doctors might not even understand what’s happening. And that’s why this partnership with WeightWatchers is so important, because it’s providing information to women, and we all need this.
As you mentioned, the lack of conversation leads to confusion, leaving women feeling like they didn’t fully understand what was happening as they went through it. What were some of the signs that you noticed?
I’m not exactly sure that I noticed what it was. What happened was I did a routine physical at my gynecologist’s office, and I did my blood work, which I always do, and my blood work is actually what revealed that I was in menopause. So she called me back after receiving my blood work and she said, you are actually in menopause. And I was like, “Huh?” It was a little shocking and startling at first. It’s just like somebody saying, you’re pregnant. “What?” So once I got over the initial shock of what she said to me, I said, “Okay, well, what does that mean, and how do you deal with it?” So she started asking me questions about how I was feeling. Was I feeling foggy about things? Was I feeling irritable? Was I experiencing any unusual weight gain? She started asking me about the symptoms. So she said, we treat the symptoms and explained to me that it was a decline in certain hormones in your body. And so they can cause some symptoms. She asked me if I was having any hot flashes, and I didn’t think I was in the typical sense that some of my friends have, where they literally are drenched in two seconds. These are actually really challenging things for us as women. But the thing is, there are treatments for it now, and more studies have been done. And typically, through the years, there’s been this lack of treatment, this lack of even saying the word, this taboo that comes along with it. Or people are like, “Oh, you are losing your temper so quick!” And it’s like, no, this is a natural, normal change. And our bodies, everyone goes through it, and men go through their changes as well. But men have been addressing their changes. They’re promoted, they do commercials about it, they balance their hormones. So we need that as well. And now we have access to hormone balance treatments or hormone replacement treatments, GLP-1s, all of these different things. And WeightWatchers happens to have this whole comprehensive program that gives you access to educated clinicians, the fitness aspect, the medications that can help balance, and the community. So you’re not just talking to yourself in the mirror or your spouse or whoever you are around who might not be able to help you. You’re actually talking to other people who, especially women, who are dealing with the same issues. So, it makes a big difference when you’re not alone in a situation.
I think it’s put out there that this is a program that’s targeting menopausal weight gain, but you did mention you’re getting community, you’re getting all these other aspects. What are some of the different forms of support that people will be able to utilize with the WeightWatchers for menopause program?
So weight gain is definitely one of the challenges you face as you get older. It’s a little more stubborn losing some of that weight, or we retained some of it, but there are treatments for it now. But it’s not just the weight loss, it’s about the feeling. How do you feel? Are you having hot flashes? Are you having these symptoms? Are you feeling foggy when you’re trying to process some things that you could handle a year ago with no problem?
This program helps you figure that out. And to me, that’s the big difference between my mother’s generation and mine: my generation of women experiencing menopause will have access to more information, knowledge, and more medications to help. And it won’t just be the 4% only. Right now, only 4% of people who are experiencing all of these symptoms and experiencing menopause are able to utilize all the information that’s out there, as well as the meds. I mean, that’s horrendous. So we need to change those numbers. Imagine how many women are out here dealing with this, how many women are suffering unnecessarily or having unnecessary arguments in their own house because they’re going through the normal process of what’s happening with their bodies and it’s creating issues. But if you can treat it and balance it, that makes all the difference. And it’s different for black women than it is for white women. And so even those differences are things that still have to be studied, but it is a topic of discussion that has to be had.
What’s one thing no one warned you about menopause that you think every woman should know?
It is different for every woman. So, a hot flash is not necessarily the signal. It could be that something just is maybe not clear to you or maybe somebody is having a conversation with you, you just don’t get it. And here’s one thing that they should know: you’re not crazy. This is just your body changing. This is your body actually changing.
Sometimes it’s just having conversations with your friends or your loved ones or your partner, your spouse, partner or spouse who’s with you, who can recognize some subtle differences. But I think it’s more important that we educate ourselves because it’s not something to be gaslit about. It’s not something to be unaware of. It’s something to be informed of. And to me, I feel more powerful. I feel more empowered every time I learn something about what my body is going to go through, and I can do something about it. I feel like I’m more in control of my destiny, of my life and my choices. And I think that’s what all women deserve. We deserve to be in control of our own bodies and our own choices and where we see our lives going. And so this is one huge, all-encompassing tool to help with that.
Like you mentioned, being empowered with knowledge about the ways in which your body is changing is really important. And as someone who’s talked about, your health in different ways as a public figure, I did want to ask you, what does body confidence look like for you now as you navigate menopause and this chapter of your life?
Body confidence is really about feeling confident. It’s always been about the inside out for me. I still love it when I exercise, and I feel good, and I do different things. I’ve also gotten a chance to experience the world and medicine and my body and doctors and information in different ways that I’ve been able to share information with them. And they’ve been able to share information with me. And that’s what makes us all feel more powerful and confident — when we can actually make decisions about our healthcare, about our lives and the health of our bodies. Now, we can choose to make decisions on how we choose to take care of ourselves, but the more information we have, the more informed decisions we can make, and the longer lives we can have. We want to live life. We want to have fun. We want to go to Vegas. We want to go on vacation. We want to be around our kids and our grandkids. We want to be in the backyard. We want to be at the games. We want to play sports. We want to dance. We want to do it all, and we want to do it right now.
We don’t want to do the 21-year-old or 30-year-old versions of it. We’ve done those versions and we’ve done well. So now we have to do our fifties. Now we are looking at planning 60th birthday parties. What are we looking forward to? It’s all about looking forward to life. And the body confidence comes from feeling good, feeling healthy, feeling like you’re taking care of yourself and managing the things that you need to. It’s a constantly evolving thing that we maintain, which is our health, and it feels good when we have a handle on it.