“Losing weight was planned”
Ricarda Lang speaks about her weight loss for the first time
January 22, 2025 – 7:50 p.mReading time: 2 minutes
Green politician Ricarda Lang has lost weight in recent months. However, she has not discussed her weight loss publicly – until now.
The former Green Party leader Ricarda Lang commented for the first time about her significant weight loss and cited health reasons as motivation. “I have a job that is incredibly draining and I want to do it for a few more years. I should pay a little more attention to myself,” said Lang in an interview with “Zeit”.
The 31-year-old politician, who resigned as leader of the Green Party in September last year, was repeatedly attacked on social media for her weight. But neither the hate comments on the Internet nor her resignation were the trigger for her weight loss, emphasized Ricarda Lang: “Some people think that I lost so much weight after resigning because of grief and stress. But the weight loss was planned and worked hard for, ever since Spring.”
The hateful comments online actually kept her away from topics such as nutrition, sport or health. “These were frightening topics for me,” said Ricarda Lang. “Sometimes there was also defiance that made me think, no, I'm not going to let you push me into this.”
Nevertheless, Ricarda Lang changed her lifestyle. “I thought, you can work yourself out for ten years now, and then you'll be left looking like a wreck when you're 40 or 50. Or you start to ask yourself: What's good for you, how do you feel, “How can you stay healthy in this job,” says Ricarda Lang and adds: “It's the first time for me that I'm actively and independently dealing with the topic of the body.”
Her happiness was her supportive mother. “I think that prevented a lot of psychological damage for me,” said Ricarda Lang. “She has […] “Never made me feel like I was less than worth it, that I was allowed to be walked on.”
Ricarda Lang also noted that her presence as a “fat woman” in politics may have shown “many younger women who are fat themselves” that “there is someone like her and she is politically successful and appears on talk shows.” After her weight loss, Lang sometimes wonders whether she is now betraying these women. “Am I now the person who gives people the feeling that they only made it if they lost weight?” the politician threw into the room, but added: “At the same time, I can’t imagine that all the time Put pressure on me to take responsibility as a projection surface. I also have to make sure that I'm doing well.”
