Ozempic and the new era of body-shaming

Back in May 2023, Jemima Kirke posted an image of herself to her Instagram. Among the comments, a few were just one word: “Ozempic.”

“If you motherfuckers only knew. I wish it was fucking Ozempic. How can you make such specific inferences and judgments about a person through their size?” Kirke replied. How can we? Easily. Crying “Ozempic!” anytime a public figure appears thinner is so common in this era of new weight-loss drugs that it’s become a meme. Dozens of celebrities – from Mindy Kaling and Kim Kardashian to Jonah Hill and Lana Del Rey – have been subject to the same accusation as Kirke.

While the specifics of the accusation may be new, this is just the same old inclination people have had forever: if someone’s body changes, people want to know why, and often declare that they do know why. It’s an eating disorder (Ariana Grande), it’s substance misuse (Post Malone), it’s steroids (Zac Efron, Kumail Nanjiani), it’s weight-loss surgery or ‘dodgy supplements’ (Adele). Now, though, it’s “the skinny shot”. 

Much of this speculation echoes trashy tabloids and their shouty, body-dissecting headlines – it’s unhelpful at best, cruel at worst. But recently, people have started to wonder whether the reaction to this culture of body-shaming – never talking about people’s bodies ever – is equally as problematic. “V weird that ‘don’t talk about womens’ bodies!’ has turned into ‘we as a culture must ignore and talk around eating disorders, essentially pretending they don’t exist,’” Avery Edison, a content creator based in Liverpool, tweeted in response to a post suggesting Kiernan Shipka has an eating disorder. “I don’t think it’s anti-feminist to say ‘heads up, this woman is unwell and you shouldn’t aim to look like her.’”

Edison is not the only one. Journalist Moya Lothian-McLean shared similar sentiments, tweeting: “Warped-ass culture we live in where famous women look violently thin and ill but it’s ‘unkind’ to note that.” So what are the rules when it comes to what we can say about bodies? Is there space for expressions of genuine concern when public figures, particularly women, appear extremely thin or look unhealthy? Is it worse to stay silent and allow these bodies to be upheld as aspirational?

“I accept that pointing out that a celebrity seems to have an eating disorder might feel like an attack on people who share that disorder, or have that body type for some other reason. But it’s not,” Edison elaborates to Dazed. “When I say, ‘she looks like that because she has a terrible disease,’ I’m not trying to harm anyone (including the celebrity, who is highly unlikely to ever see my comment). I’m trying to prevent the normalisation of that disease.”

While certainly a noble goal, is pointing out a potential eating disorder in the public square of the internet the best way to prevent the normalisation? Emma Specter, author of the forthcoming book, More, Please: On Food, Fat, Bingeing, Longing, and the Lust for “Enough,” says no. Though she understands “the frustration of seeing razor-thin celebrities presented in the public eye as standard-bearers for what women are supposed to look like”, she doesn’t buy that calling attention to someone’s body, positively or negatively, is going to lead to healing for anyone involved.

“This is a systemic problem, not an individual one, and calling people out for being too thin or struggling with disordered eating feels like the definition of Not It to me – speaking as a fat person who has too often had to deal with my body being turned into fodder for people who don’t actually care about me or my well-being,” says Specter, who has written widely about Ozempic and her own body. “As my therapist once said to me, ‘Shame is rarely productive.’”

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Despite the intention, that’s what a lot of the unfounded speculation is: a kind of shaming. It’s fundamentally different from talking to a friend or family member one-on-one to express concern, or discussing the myriad forces that contribute to body-related disorders and how we can counteract them. It’s simply pointing at an individual and essentially saying, “Bad. Wrong.”

It also could have the opposite of the intended effect. Amber Nelson, a copywriter from Washington, used to do freelance writing work for a celebrity gossip website, and said this kind of body policing and concern trolling became her beat. “If someone does have an [eating disorder], those kinds of concern-troll comments can actually reinforce the behaviour. I used to have disordered eating, that’s how I know,” she says. Eating disorder recovery groups like the Eating Recovery Center in Colorado have published information supporting that notion, quoting experts who say that body comments can lead to a “renewed commitment to change the body.” 

“Most people don’t know about the comorbidity of EDs and trauma,” continues Nelson, who says an eating disorder can sometimes be a symptom of trauma, abuse or neglect. “So the speculation about EDs, and how that speculation is weaponised to shame female celebrities/influencers who become ‘too thin’ … it strikes me as pretty macabre.” It’s especially macabre if our speculation or accusations turn out to be wrong.

This is precisely what happened with actor Chadwick Boseman, who, before he died of cancer, faced public ridicule and concern-trolling about his weight. Ashley Ray, comedian and host of the podcast TV, I Say w/Ashley Ray says people have learned nothing from Chadwick. “This type of thinking just alienates people who may need help with eating disorders and makes other people feel like they have to explain themselves when none of that should be necessary.” She also says that celebrities “offer an almost guilt-free way to judge the bodies around us,” which is an activity our society is “obsessed with.”

Turning people’s bodies into internet discourse doesn’t meaningfully change hearts and minds – it only perpetuates a culture of surveillance

This obsession feels inevitable in a culture that places greater value on what someone looks like than anything else. We’ve internalised that the look of the body is of the utmost importance, so we constantly judge our own and those around us. The impulse to judge celebrities is understandable: if you’ve spent your whole life under the thumb of a culture obsessed with beauty standards that feel impossible to obtain, you might be angry that famous people act as if they’ve stumbled into those standards without the effort, sacrifice, or harm you’ve likely had to endure. You might not believe that it has been achieved without resorting to disordered behaviours or expensive interventions. 

But while it might be understandable, none of it is ultimately helpful. Turning people’s bodies or body changes into internet discourse doesn’t meaningfully change hearts and minds – it only perpetuates a culture of surveillance and judgement, which has caused so many people body image-related issues in the first place. Specter suggests that perhaps the best solution to this is one that seems unthinkable to many people: don’t publicly talk about anyone’s body, ever, and worry about yourself.

“Is my eating disorder going to be healed by my specific celebrity object of standom gaining or losing weight? Probably not,” she says. “I’m better served to keep trying to fight off fatphobia and diet-culture brain wherever they show up in my own life, rather than litigating the finer points of other people’s physical forms.”