Candace Cameron Bure recently appeared on the “Boy Meets World” rewatch podcast “Pod Meets World,” where she opened up about the weight pressures she experienced growing up while working on the sitcom “Full House.”
“I was always the chubby-cheeked girl, and a lot of people loved that I was,” Bure said on the podcast. “And I can look back and go like, I was just a normal, average girl. And yet you meet people, and they’re like, ‘You’re so much thinner in person.’”
She added: “Of course, as a teenager, you feel that insecurity whether you’re on television or not. It gets magnified when you are, so those ages were a little bit more awkward for me.”
Bure remembered an episode from the fourth season of “Full House,” titled “Shape Up,” in which her character D.J. Tanner goes on a crash diet for a week to lose weight. The “Full House” actor said the writers discussed the episode with her ahead of time to ensure she was comfortable with the premise.
“They actually talked to my mom and dad, and they talked to me and said, ‘Would you feel comfortable if we wrote an episode like this?’ And I was like,’ Yeah, sure,’” Bure said. “But when you’re in it and doing it, it feels a little awkward.”
Bure then recalled how “Full House” handled her weight loss transformation after she lost 20 pounds between seasons.
“They thought it was so great and they were like, ‘Oh, on the opening titles, why don’t we have you on an exercise bike, like just to promote that?’” Bure said, adding that she didn’t think the idea “was bad.”
“I mean, I really put a lot of hard work and effort into losing 20 pounds,” she continued.
Elsewhere in the interview, “Pod Meets World” host Danielle Fishel, who played Topanga Lawrence on “Boy Meets World,” shared a personal anecdote about having her weight written into an episode of a show. She pointed out an episode from “Boy Meets World” Season 7, titled “She’s Having My Baby Back Ribs,” which also focused on her former co-star and podcast co-host Will Friedle’s weight gain. According to Fishel, no one previously consulted the “Boy Meets World” stars about the weight gain storyline.
“They called me into the office to tell me they were going to [do it],” Fishel said. “It wasn’t really like they asked. They just kind of said, ‘We just want you to know…obviously, you guys have gained a little bit of weight. So we’re going to write an episode about it.’”
“I remember thinking, ‘Wow, these people think I’ve gained enough weight [that they] have to write an entire episode about my weight gain,’” Fishel added. “Then, right now, I have to say I’m fine with it because they didn’t even present to me another alternative. And even if they did, I probably wouldn’t have felt comfortable being like, ‘Yeah, I don’t want to do that.’”
