Interpolated industries: The promotion of Ozempic, bariatric surgery
To satiate the demands of the thin ideal, many find themselves desperate in search of anything to relieve these pressures. Unfortunately, the medical industry is a significant contributor to this issue. With the promotion of pharmaceuticals and weight loss surgeries, it is an active endorser of conformity to society’s ill-informed standards.
Recently, the world has witnessed an increasing attraction toward semaglutide. Semaglutide, commercially known as Ozempic, was approved as a treatment for diabetes in 2017 and causes weight loss. The drug works by mimicking the action of a naturally occurring hormone to stimulate insulin production and reduce glucose absorption. This dual functionality led to a growing interest in its potential for weight management. Compared to Saxenda, a drug approved for weight loss in 2014, Ozempic showed three times the weight loss. At the time of its release, however, companies were not authorized to promote the drug as a treatment for “obesity” due to a lack of clinical trials needed to demonstrate efficacy. Four years after the drug was approved to treat diabetes, it gained FDA approval for weight loss. Its wild popularity and success encourages major pharmaceutical companies to develop a long line of similar drugs, with the two most popular being Ozempic and Wegovy.
More and more people have moved towards a once-a-week injection of semaglutide to lose weight. Even Weight Watchers has partnered with Wegovy for weight loss planning. Oprah Winfrey, a significant spokesperson for Weight Watchers, went public with her reliance on Wegovy for her recent weight loss. The tabloids are rich with stories of celebrities losing so much weight that even their “rings become too loose.” Tracy Morgan, Sharon Osbourne, and a handful of other stars noted their experiences while on Ozempic, Osborne even saying she felt like she lost “too much” weight.
The FDA is concerned with the overwhelming use of these drugs for cosmetic applications, which is divorced from its initial medical purpose of managing diabetes. The worry is that individuals may turn to semaglutide solely for its weight loss benefits, overlooking that it was initially designed as a medication to treat diabetes. This concern underscores the need for a nuanced understanding of the drug’s application. It emphasizes the importance of responsible usage and the potential consequences of straying from its intended medical purpose, including nausea, constipation, and hair loss. Physical consequences of semaglutide abuse also include stomach problems, the possibility of pancreatitis, and stomach paralysis also .
Experts also raise concern over mental health issues associated with these weight loss drugs, saying that they may harm individuals vulnerable to or in recovery from eating disorders. These drugs can reinforce societal pressure to pursue dangerous weight loss at any cost, normalizing unhealthy behaviors.
Semaglutide is relatively new in the medical world, but other harmful weight loss methods have been widely utilized in the field for much longer, such as bariatric surgery. The surgery involves altering the digestive system to limit food intake by reducing stomach size or rerouting the digestive process. The procedure has potential long-term adverse effects, including nutritional deficiencies and complications that can impact overall health. These include risks such as infections, malnutrition due to nutrient absorption issues, gastrointestinal problems, and, in some cases, long-term psychological challenges, underscoring the considerable and potentially harmful impact of such procedures on overall well-being.
These complications can be enough to turn a person away from such weight loss measures, but with weight loss drugs such as Wegovy and Ozempic, the process of conforming to weight standards becomes much more straightforward. Many expressed similar worries when the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) introduced new guidelines for “treating obesity” in children. The AAP advocated for treatments such as pharmacotherapy as well as metabolic or bariatric surgery for teens ages 13 and older with “severe obesity.” This change was met with heavy criticism, especially from eating disorder clinicians who emphasized how these guidelines could increase the rate of eating disorders amongst children in larger bodies.
The advent of weight loss interventions, both pharmaceutical and surgical, brings forth complicated impacts on both society and individuals. With the approval and popularity of these drugs and the unavoidable approval of future similar drugs, the question arises: Is the medical industry exploiting individuals struggling with body image and related issues by advocating for “easy fix” prescription drugs? These interventions pathologize natural variations in body size and perpetuate harmful beauty ideals.
The fear is that, with these options more readily available, there might be an increased expectation for individuals to utilize them. This shift could contribute to a culture where severe weight loss interventions are the norm. As these medical interventions, namely surgeries and cosmetic pharmaceuticals, become more common, they will eventually promote and push society’s standards of beauty to an extreme, and that should not happen.
