In recent weeks, an intersection of two viral conversations about Ozempic and weight loss, diet culture, and childhood obesity, left my psyche reeling. As a millennial parent who has battled disordered eating for god knows how long (I give thanks to my un-evolved sperm donating bio father) and suffered through the pro-ana and thinspo culture of the late 90s and the early aughts, my nervous system has gone into overdrive, I can see the walls closing in on me.
On one side lies the toxic culture from which I came of age; on the other stands our children. Some are not yet old enough to critically interpret confusing messages about bodies and health but whose healthcare providers are being instructed to recommend Ozempic for weight loss, diets and surgery. Not to mention the highly influenced Gen Zs.
What Does This Mean For Our Children?
In this escalating disclosure, navigating my own fluctuating distorted eating exacerbates my parental anxiety and triggers my own health status. Despite the gains of body positivity and neutrality movements, it seems we never actually left those Y2K values in the rearview mirror.
Following the release of the AAP’s childhood obesity treatment guidelines and this intense fascination with new weight loss drugs (like Ozempic), I’m wondering now more than ever whether our society will ever overcome its anti-fat bias. And when confronted with statistics such as two-thirds of children struggling with body image, I’m frozen in a defensive emergency position, desperate to protect our children from the same fatphobic societal condition I experienced.
In January of this year (2023), the AAP released new guidelines for treating childhood obesity. Its updated aggressive recommendations include weight loss drugs and bariatric surgery for some children as young as 12 – translating to a recommendation of weight loss drugs and bariatric surgery for approximately one in every three adolescents. When I read this my heart sank.
Societies Perspective On Ozempic
I had a similar heart-sinking sensation while reading a recent feature from The Cut, which spotlighted the use of Ozempic to achieve weight loss body goals, proclaiming it as a “status symbol” rather than medicine. “Disturbing, bleak and depressing are just some of the reactions across the internet in response to the piece titled “Life After Food”. The feature focuses on the injectable diabetes treatment and so-called ‘anti-obesity’ medication, Ozempic. Originally designed for people with Type 2 diabetes to help regulate insulin, and help lower blood sugar levels. Now highly known for its weight loss ‘magic”
I had heard about the feature and was hesitant to open it, I should have headed my own advice. While this piece attempts to illuminate what the writer and others see as a troubling trend, the ironic result is almost a Streisand-like effect for those of us within various stages of recovery from disordered eating. According to the interviewees, increased cancer risk wouldn’t be so bad if it meant they were thinner (coming from a girl who’s battled cancer, it’s not worth the risk), and being hungry at night wasn’t so bad since they could “drink some tea and maybe take a Xanax and sleep.” These sound like excerpts from my own live journal circa 2005 when I was incredibly ill and body image was everything.
Despite years of therapy combined with an immersion in anti-fat bias deprogramming, my thoughts readily moved from “This is incredibly troubling to I wonder what it would be like to try”. The mind-warping reality of navigating disordered eating is like living with an anthropomorphized version of the cartoon devil and angel on opposite shoulders, whispering in your ear, fighting for control of the narrative.
Some have called out the feature for promoting harmful rhetoric about obesity; others insist it entirely misses the mark by focusing on people obtaining Ozempic illegally instead of the doctors prescribing it for weight loss, resulting in shortages for those of whom it is medically indicated. Platforming the experience of a tiny subset of non-obese and, by all accounts, financially, privileged people with no physical health issues related to the drug’s approved usage, was not only shortsighted but unnecessarily reckless. The media’s breathless coverage of ‘uncovered secrets’ to staying thin was something I was certain we’d left in the past. It’s clear we simply rebranded and repackaged it.
Ozempic Backlash
From a parting perspective, I can’t help but connect the dots, recognizing patterns within the greater cultural conversation’s evolution, which brings me back to those new AAP recommendations. Eating disorder specialists were outraged and swift in responding, determined to illuminate the report’s numerous contradictions and inadequacies. They say these guidelines will have an “extremely negative impact on kids’ relationship with food and their bodies,” communicating grave concern about pathologizing kids’ weight, expected growth and development.
Writer and researcher Reagan Chastain says the entire framework of the recommendations is fundamentally flawed, in a recent Substack post, she writes “ they fail to mention that the (supposed) health benefits may have nothing to do with the very small change in size”.
Also at the forefront of these discussions is author and Maintenance Phase cohost Aubrey Gordon who, along with co host Michael Hobbes, took a deep dive into the recommendations on an episode of their podcast. Agreeing with Chastain about the AAP missing the mark entirely, Gordon says, “It boils down to something so obvious and nefarious: ‘We’re really concerned about the health of these kids. Therefore, we’re not looking at their health. We’re just looking at how fat they are.”
This is the crux of the issue. There can be no body acceptance under such conditions put forth by the AAP and the culture writ large, in part reinforced by this overwrought and reckless Ozempic-obsession trend. We are saturated in messaging reinforcing weight loss as the ultimate solution. Children internalize this at face value. They cannot, up to a certain age, separate conversations in which their body size is the key indicator of their health from feelings of success vs. failure or good vs. bad. Even in older children, like teens, their sense of self is still underdeveloped. Once you introduce these ideas to children, there’s no undoing, no going back.
And as Gordon says “because of our own conflicted (sentiments) as adults on this issue, we are sending profoundly conflicting directions to our children. We are training them to have conflicted relationships with their bodies, the foods they eat, and sometimes their family members and healthcare providers.
That’s not the message I want to send to our children. That’s not the message I want my daughter to promulgate throughout her peer groups or carry with her throughout the rest of her life as her body changes, develops, fluctuates and ages.
What Are Parents To Do?
So, what are parents to do when faced with the realization that our culture hasn’t moved on in any meaningful way? It was easier to ignore when it was relegated to magazine covers from which you could avert your eyes. But the internet changed all that. And though our search engine habits and social media algorithms allow us to shield ourselves from specific content, our control only goes so far, especially regarding our children.
Maybe part of the answer is for platforms to issue a content warning – like they did for vaccine misinformation – for harmful disordered eating content related to public health outcomes, and an interesting idea from dietitians Nicole Groman and Jaclyn London on the podcast The Business of Wellness. As social media giants like TikTok are the “new tabloid,” this seems prudent to consider.
Other pieces of the puzzle include adopting new food philosophies – to shift our framework entirely. As Jennifer Anderson, child nutrition specialist and founder of Kids Eat In Color, says “the number one thing we can do is only say nice things about our bodies in front of toddlers and preschoolers. We can also speak neutrally about food, and we don’t have to call food good or bad, healthy or unhealthy.”
Making peace with food and finding food freedom, concepts Groman discusses, means food can cease to be a source of anxiety and guilt. This is part of a larger framework of body liberation, heralded by people like Chrissy King, author of The Body Liberation Project. As she explained to Essence, body liberation is “the idea that we are inherently worthy because we exist. We deserve respect, love and appreciation, and gratitude, regardless of the reflection we see back in the mirror.”
Bottom Line
This is only my opinion on what I feel is a long harmful road to potential disordered eating, body shaming and a poor mindset. From someone who has suffered most of her childhood into adulthood with disordered eating habits, constantly comparing her body to others, always feeling the need to just shed 10 pounds (and I’ll look better). I know firsthand how harmful this is to one’s psyche, especially our children.
Instead of comparing and feeling guilt, let’s try to love and praise what we’ve been given. If we cherish her and nurture her, these examples will eventually bleed out onto our children. Never do I want my daughter to feel shame for her weight or for what she decides to eat in a day. After all, body liberation is the ultimate goal. I hope one day we are all able to get there, without the use of unhealthy body-altering methods, like Ozempic.
