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It seems hard to believe, but the \u201cOzempic era\u201d is only a few years old. CYDNI ELLEDGE\/NYT<\/p>\nUh, it looks like it\u2019s already too late. <\/p>\n
Just ask Traci Finkel, 37, an executive assistant at Boston Children\u2019s Hospital, who\u2019s been dealing with pressure to lose weight since childhood, when her sister was taken bikini shopping while her outing was to Weight Watchers. <\/p>\n
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\u201cIt\u2019s almost like people are in\u200b a cult,\u201d she said of those using GLP-1s. \u201cThe drugs are [messing] with people\u2019s minds. It reminds me a lot of the diet pills in the \u201880s. Just do this easy thing, and you don\u2019t have to do anything else.\u201d <\/p>\n
Or Ashley L., 37, a bartender and server from Malden who knows she has weight to lose but who wants to do it naturally, and to say \u201c[expletive] you\u201d to the co-workers badgering her to take a weight-loss drug. <\/p>\n
It seems hard to believe, but the \u201cOzempic era\u201d is only a few years old. CYDNI ELLEDGE\/NYT<\/p>\n
\u201cThe ladies I work with, they\u2019ve all taken GLP-1s, and they\u2019re like, \u2018What are you waiting for \u2014 do you want to stay like that forever?\u2019\u201d she said, requesting that only her last initial be used for privacy reasons.<\/p>\n
And Jun Ni, a railroad project manager from West Roxbury, who describes herself as \u201clarger,\u201d and puts off medical care because she dreads her doctor\u2019s relentless pressure to start on a GLP-1.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve worked through shame and body-image issues, and I don\u2019t have any health issues,\u201d said Ni. \u201cIt feels predatory.\u201d<\/p>\n
It seems hard to believe, but the \u201cOzempic e<\/a>ra\u201d<\/a> is only a few years old. In 2021, views for TikTok videos tagged with #Ozempic were a mere 2 million, according to a history of the drug\u2019s rise by the Medical University of South Carolina. In 2023, the views hit 1.2 billion, the school reported. <\/p>\n The society-wide makeover it enabled was so intense that at the 2023 Oscars, host Jimmy Kimmel joked about it from the stage. \u201cEverybody looks so great,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen I look around this room, I can\u2019t help but wonder \u2018Is Ozempic right for me?\u2019\u201d And a cosmetic dermatologist coined a term to describe the look: \u201cOzempic face.<\/a>\u201d <\/p>\n By now, it\u2019s so widespread that restaurants, marriages, and seamstresses are feeling the impact. \u201cSmaller portions, more protein: How GLP-1s are quietly changing chain restaurant menus,\u201d read an NBC news headline. \u201cFat jabs to unleash divorce boom,\u201d<\/a> The Telegraph reported. \u201cSize Doesn\u2019t Matter, Fit Does: Introducing David\u2019s Fit Guarantee\u2122,” read the David\u2019s Bridal press release. <\/p>\n But not everyone wants to use the medications (and some patients with certain pre-existing conditions have been advised not to for safety reasons). <\/p>\n For starters, even with insurance, the drugs can come with high costs, \u201cand,\u201d said Finkel, \u201cyou\u2019re supposed to do it for your whole life.\u201d<\/p>\n Many people don\u2019t want to risk the known and unknown side effects \u2014 which can be as temporary as nausea or as long-lasting as eye damage. Others say they want to repair their emotional relationship with food at its source.<\/p>\n Virgie Tovar,<\/a> <\/b>host of the \u201cGLP-1 Truth Serum\u201d podcast and an expert on weight-based discrimination, says the new weight-loss drugs have unleashed \u201cpeak weight stigma or fat phobia.\u201d<\/p>\n Because conversation about weight has now been \u201cmedicalized,\u201d it\u2019s given friends, family, and even strangers the self-appointed right to meddle, she said, as she captured the thinking: \u201cIt\u2019s my job to step in if someone has a disease they\u2019re not treating because GLP-1 ads are using that language.<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut I don\u2019t think it\u2019s about health,\u201d she said. As evidence, she pointed to the fact that people are being shamed whether or not they take a weight-loss drug.<\/p>\n Meghan Garcia-Webb, a medical doctor who runs a boutique weight-management practice<\/a> in Newton, hears those very challenges from patients in her practice. <\/p>\n \u201cYou are policed if you are too thin,\u201d she said (cue the frenzy<\/a> around Ariana Grande). \u201cIf you lose weight, people say inappropriate things to you. And if you accept yourself as you are, people ask why aren\u2019t you taking these meds?\u201d<\/p>\n Given our pre-GLP-1 obsession with weight and dieting, it would have been hard to imagine things getting even more bonkers, but Lauren Beckham Falcone,<\/a> the WROR radio host, captured the heightened madness.<\/p>\n She lost weight a little while ago, she said, and wanted everyone to know she did it without the use of drugs. But now that she\u2019s gained the weight back, she\u2019s insulted because she thinks others are thinking that she\u2019s not using a drug. \u201cIt\u2019s the new embarrassing life status: She\u2019s not taking the shot.\u201d<\/p>\n Beth Teitell can be reached at beth.teitell@globe.com<\/a>. Follow her @bethteitell<\/a>.<\/p>\n