By Julia van Poortvliet
Content material warning: this text makes temporary references to consuming issues and physique picture
TikTok is buzzing with speak concerning the new sizzling drug, Ozempic. It has bombarded the media and grow to be intertwined with divisive discourse about popular culture and wonder requirements. So what precisely is Ozempic, and why is everybody speaking about it?
Ozempic is the model title for the drug ‘Semaglutide’, developed as a medicine to deal with sort 2 diabetes by the Danish pharmaceutical firm, Nova Nordisk and permitted for medical use by the US in 2017. Taken as a weekly injection, it regulates blood glucose and insulin ranges and has proved a extremely efficient type of therapy.
Nonetheless, there’s one other key aspect impact that has made Ozempic so well-known: weight reduction. In 2021, a medical trial discovered the drug to have the most important weight reduction impact ever noticed amongst anti-obesity medicines. This happens because of the drug’s capacity to suppress urge for food hormones, slowing down the motion of meals within the physique and making individuals really feel full for longer. Since this research, Nova Nordisk has licensed a model for weight reduction known as ‘Wegovy’ and international curiosity within the drug has soared.
Promotion of the drug has been notably distinguished amongst celebrities and social media websites, being hailed as a ‘miracle weight reduction injection’. TikTok is flooded with movies of individuals exhibiting off their Ozempic weight reduction journey, proudly posting earlier than and after physique transformation footage and tallying up the kilos they’ve misplaced. Amy Schumer, Elon Musk, and Sharon Osbourne are amongst the listing of influential figures who’ve talked brazenly about their expertise taking the drug for weight reduction functions.
Proudly posting earlier than and after physique transformation footage and tallying up the kilos they’ve misplaced
Though there are controversies surrounding the drug, many overweight sufferers have had optimistic experiences utilizing Ozempic, permitting them to shed pounds and are available off of drugs for blood strain. The 2019 Well being Survey for England estimated 28% of adults within the nation have been overweight, which means the drug might be a life-changing answer for thousands and thousands of individuals going through well being points associated to extra weight.
So the place do the problems lie? Though Ozempic is a brand new drug, so its long-term results aren’t clear, identified unwanted side effects embrace intense vomiting, nausea and diarrhoea. The speedy weight reduction attributable to the drug additionally causes a lack of muscle mass, making individuals look older as their facial pores and skin sags. Moreover, a latest paper printed in ‘Diabetes, Weight problems and Metabolism’ discovered that these taking the drug regained two-thirds of the load they’d misplaced within the first yr after stopping the treatment, inflicting points surrounding ‘yo-yo’ weight-reduction plan, which analysis has repeatedly proven to trigger metabolic harm.
Regardless of the hazards of the drug, there was an explosive development of already bodily wholesome individuals taking Ozempic for the beauty objective of reaching one final purpose, ‘thinness’. All through a lot of historical past, and notably for ladies, the thin physique has dominated as the best magnificence commonplace. Though in recent times we’ve got seen a increase within the body-positivity motion, with a extra inclusive vary of our bodies being represented and accepted within the cultural mainstream, it appears that evidently the Ozempic development is reversing this and as soon as once more hailing smaller our bodies as superior. The important thing difficulty right here is that on account of each genetics and causes of financial inequality, thinness shouldn’t be accessible to everybody, and by no means will probably be. Subsequently, the thin perfect promotes unrealistic physique requirements that individuals have gone to excessive and unhealthy lengths to satisfy.
There was an explosive development of already bodily wholesome individuals taking Ozempic for the beauty objective of reaching one final purpose, ‘thinness’
Younger persons are probably the most weak to absorbing these dangerous messages, with physique picture points being most distinguished amongst youngsters. The media’s worship of the thin physique comes hand in hand with a worrying local weather of weight loss program tradition and consuming issues which have had detrimental results on individuals’s relationship with meals. Kate Moss’s notorious quote, ‘nothing tastes nearly as good as skinny feels’, represents the normalisation of disordered consuming related to the early 00’s aesthetic of ‘heroin stylish’. Though a latest social media wave has began to name out fad diets and encourage correct vitamin and wholesome consuming of their place, the rise of Ozempic is exhibiting cracks on this messaging, suggesting society’s idealisation of thin has by no means actually left.
The craze for Ozempic has grow to be so excessive that there are ongoing international shortages of the drug, which means these with sort two diabetes are unable to entry it. Novo Nordisk has reportedly decreased their promotion of Wegovy to ‘dampen demand’, nevertheless people are so determined for the load loss drug that they’re resorting to utilizing off-label Ozempic, inflicting a scenario the place demand surpasses provide.
With the intention to create a society with a more healthy relationship with meals, the dangerous idealisation of smaller our bodies that the Ozempic craze is contributing to must be addressed. By difficult media messaging and embracing that our bodies come in several sizes, there’s hope that we will stop future battles for weight reduction.
Picture: Spjalle Frisk through Flickr