When Ozempic and similar drugs first came into public consciousness two years ago as the open secret of the rich and famous, their widespread non-medical use was met with shock and unease. These semaglutide drugs, which were a lifeline for people struggling with obesity and diabetes, were being injected into already-thin celebrity bodies, leading them to only eat a meal or two a day without feeling the urge to eat more. Many experienced enduring and serious effects, such as kidney damage and gallbladder issues. Mentions of the drug were described as “bleak”, “dystopian” and “a total horror show”. “We live in hell” was a common response.
It was uncontroversial then to argue that taking a drug that helped you starve yourself – while exacerbating shortages for the patients who needed it – was a sign of our depressing diet culture thriving in spite of the perceived gains made by the body-positivity movement. A retroactive, dawning realisation occurred where celebrities with thin or very thin bodies had their seemingly overnight, significant weight loss through “healthy eating and exercise” revealed as being drug-induced.
Since then, a shift has occurred in which Ozempic use has become more accepted. Today, we increasingly hear about the drug in more sympathetic terms. It has been framed as a feminist choice, giving women a simpler method to subvert patriarchal pressures to be thin.
On TikTok and Instagram, popular videos argue that by taking these drugs for weight loss, users can experience relief from society’s beauty standards (by, of course, meeting them). Any criticism levelled at them for taking Ozempic amounts to an anti-feminist attack on women’s personal choices. Some argue taking these drugs is an act of self-care. Whole forums are committed to pushing back against “Ozempic shaming”: “They see [using Ozempic] as taking an easy way out instead of using willpower,” reads the typical argument. “It’s deeply misogynistic.”
“My life is much happier by not giving a f**k about what the nameless masses on the internet think,” another Ozempic user said in response to criticism of the drug.
You can see why this is happening now. The number of young women in the US aged 18-25 using drugs like Ozempic (GLP-1 RAs) increased by 659 per cent between 2020 and 2023 (for young men in the same age range, the increase was 481 per cent). It’s also true that we culturally value thinness in large part because of the implied sacrifice: there will be people who demonise semaglutides because it allows people to leapfrog dedication, discipline and pain.
But the shallow, liberal feminist linguistic defence of Ozempic skews real risks. Common side effects are brushed off as negligible, as if a lifestyle plagued with digestive issues and extreme nausea are manageable as long as you aren’t experiencing more serious symptoms (some have said these “minor” effects are ruining their lives).
More concerning, though, is the thousands of people making the argument that the rise in Ozempic is somehow good news for women. Thanks to a recent shift in how we talk about beauty standards – steering away from trying to deconstruct our obsession with thinness and beauty – we have somehow ended up in a place where we opt for pseudo-feminist arguments that reinforce the status quo.
It is a predictable chapter within the wider trend in third-wave feminism where patriarchal structures harming women are pointed at and lamented, but where the conclusion always suggests that, implicitly or explicitly, we have little recourse to be able to challenge or subvert them. It also nods to a sharp return to the choice feminism popular in the 2010s, which leads to questions about how effective body-positive and radical feminist arguments have been in the years since.
The reality of our current Ozempic ecosystem is just as dismal as the original reporting around it suggested: people continue to seek punishing and expensive drugs to attempt to fit society’s beauty standards. Meanwhile patients being treated for obesity are still struggling to access those drugs.
It’s naive to suggest that most people should be able to completely disentangle themselves from societal pressure around weight and beauty instantly – that the answer is as easy as simply ignoring the social conditioning we have all been subjected to. But we can’t keep playing dumb about the sacrifices we have to make in order to foreclose our obsession with thinness. A better, kinder world won’t be found in – even just privately – making this narrow vision of beauty the centre of our own.
[See also: Do not buy an AI smartphone]
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