The Ozempic trend and why I’m worried it’s fuelling a new wave of eating disorders
As I sit here, growing a beautiful baby and reflecting on my own journey, I can’t help but feel a deep anger at the resurgence of toxic narratives surrounding weight loss.
The rise of Ozempic and other quick-fix weight-loss drugs, alongside the unsettling whispers of “heroin chic” making a comeback, fills me with despair. It feels like we’ve come full circle, right back to the damaging diet culture of the noughties—a culture I know all too well.
When I was 14, I battled anorexia to an extremity. By the time I was 15, I was hospitalised. That was just the beginning of a long and painful struggle with disordered eating, one that took years to overcome. Even as I worked to heal, the echoes of those early battles lingered, manifesting in a host of other unhealthy behaviours around food and body image for many years to come. For anyone who’s been through it, the scars of disordered eating are not just physical—they’re mental, emotional, and profoundly life-altering. Even today, I still battle with my changing body. Eating disorders can often last a lifetime.
That’s why seeing Ozempic glorified as a miracle drug for weight loss is so infuriating. It’s not just the drug itself; it’s the media frenzy, the TikTok accounts obsessed with rapid transformations, and the toxic celebrity culture that praises unattainable thinness. For those of us who lived through the size-zero craze of the early 2000s, it’s disturbingly familiar.
Back then, magazines were plastered with images of stick-thin celebrities, “what I eat in a day” columns that glorified starvation diets, and constant chatter about losing those “last five pounds.” The message was loud and clear: thinness equalled worthiness. Social media wasn’t quite as popular as it is today, but the damage was done through every glossy page.
Now, with TikTok and Instagram amplifying these harmful ideals, the reach is even wider. I’ve come across accounts celebrating “skinny” as a lifestyle, sharing meal plans that are little more than starvation guides, and using Ozempic as the latest shortcut to an ideal that’s both dangerous and damaging. We had a brief moment of body positivity—a fleeting era where diverse bodies were celebrated, and the focus was on health and self-love. But now, it feels like all that progress is being undone.
I find myself grieving for the next generation of young people who are growing up in this toxic environment. They’re bombarded with messages that thinness is the ultimate goal, and that happiness and health come in the form of a syringe or a starvation diet. I fear for the 14-year-old girls out there today, who may find themselves caught in the same destructive cycle that I was, feeling pressured to conform to a narrow, harmful ideal of beauty.
Pregnancy has changed the way I think about my body in profound ways. For the first time, I’m marvelling at what it can do—not what it looks like. My body is growing a life, and that’s more powerful than any number on a scale. But even in this stage of my life, I’m not immune to the toxicity. I still see those headlines, those “before and after” images, and those TikTok videos that glorify shrinking yourself down. And I wonder: how do we stop this cycle from repeating itself?
We need to take a stand—against the diet culture that profits from insecurity, against the media that perpetuates harmful ideals, and against the normalisation of disordered eating. We owe it to ourselves, to our children, and to the future to push back.
Let’s not allow another generation to be consumed by the idea that they’re only as good as their smallest size. Let’s celebrate strength, health, and diversity. And let’s remember that our worth isn’t measured in pounds or dress sizes but in the lives we lead and the people we become.
The Ozempic trend isn’t just a fleeting moment; it’s a warning sign. If we don’t challenge it now, we risk falling back into the very traps we’ve fought so hard to escape.
For me, for my baby, and for anyone who’s ever struggled, I’m saying enough is enough.
