I wrote about weight-loss drugs and the harm they could do to a generation of young women (mine) who grew up obsessed with thinness. Some have said that if solving the obesity crisis necessitates an uptick in anorexics, that’s fine; and that, especially for overweight young men who aren’t eligible for the draft, the obesity crisis is a national security risk that must be fixed soon.
My point is to caution against purely cosmetic and aesthetic uses for weight-loss drugs. Yes, America needs to shed weight. But I’ve seen little discussion about the harm these drugs cause for not unhealthy young women tempted to lose weight they don’t need to lose. It’s all my cohort (I’m in my early 20s, and most of my girlfriends live in the Acela corridor and the Midwest) can talk about.
We’re not sure how to respond when girls our age say, “Don’t I look great, I’ve lost five pounds on Ozempic?” — because we grew up knowing that complimenting someone’s thinning frame might fuel their desire to starve themselves.
And, yes, this is nothing new. Women have wanted to be thin forever. After the pandemic, though, young people started to recognize the importance of health. In bigger cities, young adults started going to run clubs, getting sober, eating healthy, and prioritizing health. In those same cities, young women are now tempted to use weight-loss drugs for cosmetic purposes. I worry that — in pursuit of a “skinny” beauty standard that requires starvation, not a solid understanding of health — weight-loss drugs will end the growing health-conscious era.
Weight-loss drugs are also relentlessly marketed to people who do not need them.
So, if weight-loss drugs prove to be game-changers for the about 60 percent of Americas who do need them (which will take government heft and time), great. By all means. But just because we’ve found a “miracle” drug for those Americans doesn’t mean we should ignore the fact that these drugs could be damaging to healthy women, and beauty standards nationwide. We don’t need to choose between anorexia or obesity. We need to stop the normalization of weight-loss drugs for otherwise healthy people.