Drugs like Ozempic won’t ‘cure’ obesity but they might make us more fat-phobic

Natalia Sharygina/Shutterstock by Emma Beckett, UNSW Sydney Hundreds of thousands of people worldwide are taking drugs like Ozempic to lose weight. But what do we actually know about them? This month, The Conversation’s experts explore their rise, impact and potential consequences. Many have declared drugs like Ozempic could “end obesity” by reducing the appetite and waistlines of millions of people around the world. When we look past the hype, this isn’t just untrue – it can also be harmful. The focus on weight, as opposed to health, is a feature of diet culture. This frames the pursuit of thinness as more important than other aspects of physical and cultural wellbeing. The Ozempic buzz isn’t just rooted in health and medicine but plays into ideas of fat stigma and fat phobia. This can perpetuate fears of fatness and fat people, and the behaviours that harm people who live in larger bodies. Not the first ‘miracle’ weight-loss drug This isn’t the first time we have heard that weight-loss drugs will change the world. Ozempic and its family of GLP-1-mimicking drugs are the latest in a long line of weight loss drugs. Each looked promising at the time. But none have lived up...