Jodie Sweetin and Andrea Barber SayFull HouseEpisode About D.J.’s Weight Was Hard to Watch: 'It Makes Me So Mad'

Mar. 15, 2025

Candace Cameron Bure in ‘Full House’ in 1990.Photo:Warner Bros. Television/Courtesy Everett Collection

Warner Bros. Television/Courtesy Everett Collection

Andrea BarberandJodie Sweetinhad a tough time revisiting a very special episode ofFull Housecentered on costarCandace Cameron Bure’s character’s weight.

On the most recent episode of their rewatch podcastHow Rude, Tanneritos!,the hosts took a look back at “Shape Up,” a now-infamous episode from the beloved sitcom’s fourth season. Barber and Sweetin agreed that the 1990 episode, which found Bure’s teenage character D.J. Tanner skipping meals in preparation for a pool party, was hard to watch.

Barber noted that at the time, series creatorJeff Franklinconsulted with Bure’s parents and got them to sign off on the storyline. But, she said, that “doesn’t negate the fact that it’s a spotlight on a teenage girl and her insecurity.”

Candace Cameron Bure in ‘Full House’ in 1990.Warner Bros. Television/Courtesy Everett Collection

“It was very uncomfortable to watch,” she explained. “It made me really feel for Candace too having to carry this storyline.”

“I know it was something that she was sensitive about,” Sweetin, 43, agreed. “It’s hard when it’s something that you’re really dealing with to be like, ‘Oh, I’m gonna pretend that this is fine and that I can resolve it,’ you know?”

Both hosts also agreed that the episode touched on an important issue: teenage girls’ body image. But Barber, 48, added that while watching, it was “hard to divorce the idea of the actor versus the character.”

“You know, it’s like there’s still a real person who has to say these lines and feeling these emotions,” she explained.

Candace Cameron Bure in 1990.Bob D’Amico/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty

Bure also addressed the episodeduring an August 2024 appearance on thePod Meets Worldpodcast.

OnTanneritos, Sweetin explained that knowing Bure for years “and stuff she’s struggled with” made the episode “harder to watch because you’re like, ‘This feels too weirdly personal.’ ”

“It makes me so mad that she went through that and that people did comment on her cheeks and her face,” Barber said. “She looked great. Like, so many girls were like, ‘I wish I looked like you,’ and she felt so insecure about it. And I’m so mad that people made her feel that way.”

Jodie Sweetin, Candace Cameron Bure, John Stamos and Bob Saget in ‘Full House’ in 1990.Hulu

Hulu

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Sweetin, meanwhile, said that the episode made her appreciate the progress that has been made around conversations about women and girls’ bodies since the ’90s, leading Barber to wonder how Netflix’sFuller Housemight have tackled the issue differently.

“I’m very curious how they would have done that and how it would have been written,” she said of the Netflix reboot on which she starred alongside Sweetin and Bure from 2016 to 2020. “Hopefully, the adults wouldn’t have been so clueless about the red flags that were screaming, you know, in neon lights.”

source: people.com