Candace Cameron Bure recently appeared on the “Pod Meets World” podcast to rewatch “Boy Meets World,” where she spoke candidly about the weight pressures she faced growing up while working on the sitcom “Full House.”
“I was always the girl with the chubby cheeks, and a lot of people loved that,” Burr said on the podcast. “And I can look back and say I was just a normal, average girl. But when you meet people, they’re like, ‘You’re actually a lot thinner.’”
“Of course, as a teenager, you feel that insecurity whether you're on TV or not. And the insecurity increases when you're on TV, so those were the most awkward ages for me,” she added.
Bure recalled a season four episode of “Full House” called “Shape Up,” in which her character DJ Tanner goes on a weeklong diet to lose weight. The “Full House” actress said the writers discussed the episode with her beforehand to make sure she was comfortable with the idea.
“They actually talked to my mom and dad, and they talked to me and they said, ‘Would you be comfortable if we wrote an episode like this?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, sure,’” Burr said. “But when you’re in it and you’re doing it, you feel a little bit awkward.”
Then Burr recalled how the “Full House” alum handled her weight loss transformation after she lost 20 pounds between seasons.
“They thought it was a really great idea, and they said, ‘Oh, in the opening titles, why don’t we put you on a bicycle, just to promote that?’” Burr said, adding that she didn’t think the idea “was bad.”
“I mean, I put in a lot of work and effort to lose 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 writing her weight into an episode of the show. She referenced a season 7 episode of “Boy Meets World,” titled “She’s Have My Baby Back Ribs,” which also focused on her former co-star and podcaster Will Friedle’s weight gain. According to Fishel, no one had 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]“It wasn’t really what they asked,” Fishel said. “They just said, ‘We just want you to know… you’ve obviously gained a little bit of weight. So we’re going to write an episode about that.’”
“I remember thinking, ‘Wow, these people think I’ve gained enough weight. [that they] “I had to write an entire episode about my weight gain,” Fishel added. “Now, I have to say I’m okay with it because they didn’t even offer me an alternative. Even if they had, I probably wouldn’t have felt comfortable saying, ‘Yeah, I don’t want to do that.’”
