Why Ozempic is fucking me up, even though I'm not taking it

We have never lived in a body-positive world. Maybe, now, we never will.

Ozempic, Zempic, Wegovy, Miss Z – it’s everywhere I turn. Every other video on my TikTok FYP is talking about it. Some creators are unpicking how it’s brought back 00s diet culture; others are filming ‘what I eat in a day’ on the appetite suppressant or recommending protein powder that goes well with the drug (linked to their TikTok shop, of course).

Body-positive creators are taking it now, too. Some are being honest. Some are trying to gaslight us into believing it’s an empowering decision (choice feminism at its peak, people). Most are lying. They’re taking it on the sly, posting the odd workout picture to try to persuade us that they lost three stone in three months in a totally healthy and natural way!

Those in the community who aren’t taking it are, rightfully, feeling hurt – it has shown the ‘body positive’ social media movement for what it is: a lie. That’s not to say it’s all a lie, but much of it is. Much of it was just capitalism trying out a new route, much of it was performing neutrality or positivity while living in an entirely different way.

Kitty Underhill, a brilliant creator in the body image space, wrote in a recent Substack: “People are fat for any number of reasons, and that in itself is not a problem, even though it has been problematised for so long. For example, weight gain is a side effect of many antidepressants and SSRIs... But what’s the alternative to these people? Thin and dead? When anti-fatness conflates thinness with wellness, we start doing the same, so even if someone is making wonderful, life-changing recoveries, that’s not celebrated because weight gain may be a by-product. Our priorities are all wrong.”

As soon as Ozempic hit the market, I foresaw this happening. I knew it would be detrimental to a whole generation of women and girls’ body image. I knew everyone would take it, and many not for legitimate medical reasons. I knew thin people would take it, and it would make them sick. People are lying to get the drug or going down dangerous, unlicensed routes. The first known UK death connected to an unlicensed slimming injection has already happened. There will be more. The UK government, last week, said that handing out the drug could help get unemployed people back to work. The statement by Wes Streeting is not worth my breath, but let me just say that it was classist, fatphobic, ableist, and all-around grim and, more importantly, stupid.

So, why is this discourse fucking me up, personally?

a) I don’t want to take Ozempic, and no healthcare provider has suggested that I should. I have a chronic health condition, which means I already inject a drug into my stomach routinely and – where possible – want to limit the amount of medicines I take. I am not pre-diabetic or diabetic (who Ozempic is made for). However, despite not wanting to or needing to take it, I feel like I should. That some people are expecting I do. A family member, very unsubtly, tried to feel out if I would, recently.

b) It shows just how rotten fatphobia is. That no amount of exposure to fat people’s lives, or science showing that fat people can be fat and healthy, that fat is not inherently wrong, will change this. The body-positive movement has, ultimately, failed. The body-shaming comments I see from teenagers today are worse than the ones I saw as a teen. Society is getting more fatphobic, not less. We have never lived in a body-positive world. We have not ‘gone back’ to the 90s or 00s. It has always been this way. And, if Ozempic continues to be touted as a miracle drug, we always will.

b) The world will be – already is – fundamentally changed by Ozempic. And those changes I’ve witnessed thus far have been mostly negative. The positives are being drowned out by all the celebrities, influencers, and regular people misusing the drug. Will Ozempic become so normalised, so far-reaching, that eventually, we all succumb to it? Even those of us who morally and philosophically oppose it?