The trend towards body positivity and acceptance of all body types was broad and welcome but apparently short-lived. The relentless onslaught of GLP-1 agonists (Ozempic et al.) rapidly ensured that the glorification of thinness returned to the fore.
Body positivity on all media platforms, and even in clothing companies, opened the door for people to start to accept their bodies as they were made. Seeing models and influencers in all sorts of bodies and wearing all sorts of clothes was incredibly liberating for people in all shapes and sizes.
The movement lasted long enough for people with a strong negative self-image to start the process of healing. We are all inundated with images each and every day so a wider view of the human body was novel and exciting.
The GLP-1 agonists swept the country and wiped body positivity out very quickly.
Capitalism worked swiftly and at its best as the overwhelming demand for these drugs took hold. Doctors set up online rent-a-doc sites for quick prescriptions. Compounding pharmacies ramped up production to meet the demands for people who either could not find the drug in stock or couldn’t get insurance to cover it. People were willing to spend $1000+ monthly to procure the magic shots.
Such a societal craze led a majority of people to follow the trend. The need for the drugs frequently overrode any forethought into whether or not starting the medication was a good idea. There was no intention to end the body positivity movement. If there is a new and supposedly easy way to fix an old obsession, most people will forgo the new idea and reach for the quick fix. Body positivity just disappeared.
The reckoning for this communal decision is starting. People have to go off these drugs for short-term and long-term side effects. The medications often don’t work or the effects don’t last. People can’t afford to go into debt to continue the medications, and they only work if you keep taking them.
What happens next? Does everyone go on the new drugs coming out in years to come? When it becomes clear the drugs aren’t magic, do people return to focusing on thinness at all costs?
Or is it possible to return to body positivity so that this new approach to being a human isn’t just a short blip in our culture? I truly hope this last option comes true.
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