GLP-1 medications: a modern tale of not being good enough
My thoughts on GLP-1 medications
It’s not the first time, and it probably won’t be the last, but I find myself sat down here again, pondering about GLP-1 medications. It’s been brewing in my head for a while, but I just couldn’t organise my thoughts and put coherent words on my malaise about it all.
I’ve had to sit here for a while and ask myself: “what is it that you really want to say?” I don’t want to discuss whether I’m for or against, I’m not interested in the “is it the easy way out” argument, I don’t think I even want to talk about the physiological impact of those drugs from a physiological or nutritional standpoint. There’s something else that is bothering me, a bit like a tiny pebble in my shoe, there’s something that’s preventing me from walking down that road with comfort. Let me try to explain.
Should you even lose weight?
For me the main question isn’t should you, or should you not go on GLP-1s but really: should you lose weight? And the other question linked to that is: who profits from your weight loss? Finally, I can’t help but ask myself: what does that mean for us as a society?
I’ve watched a few documentaries on weight loss drugs recently and one comment from a buff gym bro (who uses GLP-1 medications “on and off”) struck me: “to have a low body fat, you need to eat substantially less food than your body would want”. The absurdity of this statement almost made me choke on my sandwich. If your body is reluctant to become that lean, there might be a reason. Nature doesn’t want us to be “lean as fuck”, as I often hear, or else we might die. It’s that simple. Having an extremely low body fat places us in a very vulnerable situation. Would there to be a famine, we need a back-up system. I know it’s unlikely we’ll experience a famine but, nonetheless, this is not where your body wants to go. It also doesn’t want to go there because without adequate fat, it doesn’t work very well: adieu fertility, libido, thyroid function and more. And yet we have created a drug that can take us right there. I understand needing, and even wanting, to lose weight, but I don’t understand, or support, reaching for a weight that is lower than biologically appropriate.
Old idea, new means and target audience
The problem here is that societal trends have us aim for very thin/lean bodies and so effectively there’s a gap between what we want and what we can naturally achieve. That gap isn’t a new phenomenon, but at least before we had fewer means to narrow it. Some people clearly achieved it through dieting, disordered eating, eating disorders and compulsive exercise but now there is a whole host of people who can access it, and worse who are encouraged to access it.
GLP-1 use isn’t contained to women, but it seems less acceptable to talk about weight loss in men, isn’t it? A bit like EDs are “a girl’s thing”, weight loss is “a woman thing”, right? However, there’s a market here, many men want to lose weight and so I have noticed a resurgence of the word “bio-hacking”, which sounds better and more scientific. I have also noticed that the new buzz word is “longevity”. Yet, if you listen carefully to influencers, you’ll see that “bio-hacking” and “longevity” always come back to weight loss. These are just words used to sweeten an unpalatable truth: everyone wants to lose fat because we have all been fed this idea that only lean bodies are desirable. Oh, and the fact that it is unattainable makes it a pretty good business model.
GLP-1 medications: a modern myth of Sisyphus
In The Myth of Sisyphus, Albert Camus puts forward his philosophy of the absurd, whereby the fundamental human need to attribute meaning to life is juxtaposed with “the unreasonable silence” of the universe in response. It seems to me that we also live at a time of absurdity whereby lies the juxtaposition between the fundamental human need to eat and the “unreasonable goal” of society in response. Sisyphus is doomed to carry that boulder up the mountain over and over again without ever reaching the top, try as he might. We are doomed to shrink ourselves, build muscle, inject ourselves, cut bits off, add new bits etc., in a bid to be desirable, loved and accepted but we’ll never reach the top, it’ll never be good enough. And so back down we go.
Another thing struck me while watching those documentaries. It is how people on weight loss drugs suddenly have become “experts” on their health, blood sugar, nutrition etc., even though they were not interested in any of that before (according to them). Through lack of food, perhaps, they have become avid consumers of nutrition facts and will regurgitate those facts incessantly. They have become GLP-1 evangelists, serving us pre-digested but also somewhat rank nutritional facts. Factoids, if you wish. This bulimia acts as propaganda and serves the same industry that has always profited from people’s insecurities.
When the patriarchy gets a glow-up
To me GLP-1 drugs are patriarchal. They are patriarchal to both women and men in that we’re both being told by “The Man” how we should look. GLP-1 medications are basically just good old weight loss drugs (like amphetamines in the 70s) with a Gen Z twist.
GLP-1s are also elitist. Back to our gym bro who explained that bio hacking was “optimising health with nature, science, technology and any means necessary”. I think what he really meant was: tons of cash. If bio-hacking was merely sleep enough, engage in regular physical activity, eat a range of nutritious food, hydrate plenty and let nature take its course, I’d be on board but that’s not what most people mean. They mean literally hacking into the system to defy our biology. To do that, you need the means: tests, supplements, gears, memberships, treatments, injections etc. This is widening the gap between the haves and the have nots.
Oh and, by the way, you can throw all the money you want at it, in the end, you will die. You can’t bio-hack yourself into eternal life, or even youth. As this guy that I like on Instagram once said: you can either look old, or you can look weird.
GLP-1 medications are capitalistic
The other day, I heard that sales have gone down at Greggs because of the mass use of GLP-1s. So, they are about to roll out smaller portions and protein rich products to target weight loss customers. Basically, every calorie now must count for something and the challenge for the food industry is finding their market share within that smaller plate size. Once again, it’s not about health, it’s about money. And what about us? I don’t want to eat smaller meals, and I don’t want to stuff myself with protein products that are more expensive (they will be, no doubt about that). I also don’t want to be shamed for having an appetite and for wanting my body to be fed adequately.
Apparently, people are also drinking less, because the desire has been diminished though the drugs, because they can’t tolerate alcohol as well, or because they have become more health conscious. Fine, good, whatever. The interesting bit here is that because people drink less, the industry has had, once again, to adapt in order not to lose shares. So, we have seen the rise of low/zero alcohol drinks full of vitamins and adaptogens mushrooming of late. Make no mistake this is basically expensive water. I heard the phrase “leaning into health and wellness” in the mouths of manufacturers to justify the genesis of these products and that made me feel a bit sick. Making money isn’t a crime, most of us try to but let’s be honest about we do. Don’t take us for idiots and tell us that your products have been designed with our health in mind. These products have solely been created for you to make money; you don’t give a flying fig about health.
Going full circle
Another sector that is profiteering from the boom in weight loss drugs is plastic surgery. I suppose cosmetic procedures are to weight loss drugs what the beauty industry is to the weight loss industry. People lose weight rapidly and with that comes sagging skin. They also lose fat in places they didn’t want to, threatening their desirability and so plastic surgery offers a solution. I’m not anti-cosmetic procedures per se but I want you to see how the system works. You see, we’re back on the mountain with our boulder again: we were reaching the top having lost weight, but now we’re back to the bottom again with deflated boobs or a flappy belly. So up we go again until next time when we might need to fix those wrinkles or whatever else is wrong with us.
GLP-1 medications are fat phobic
GLP-1 drugs are also, to an extent, fat phobic in that they perpetuate the idea that fat bodies are problematic.
In one of the documentaries I watched, the best point was made by a dress maker. She explained that because brides now have access to Ozempic and friends, they are losing more weight than before (the pressure to lose weight pre- wedding has been there for a while). However, because there are also more brides using the drug, this has massively increased the pressure to be thin for your wedding. Essentially, as people shrink the microscope on bodies, and especially larger bodies, is becoming even harsher.
The fact that even slim people are now microdosing the drug is also changing the goal post, bringing it further down meaning that people in larger bodies have to lose more weight to be acceptable. Meanwhile, those in larger bodies, even without the nasty label of “obese”, are starting to appear yet larger. And with that comes shame and shaming. Have you noticed how fat shaming has increased on social media in recent years?
Social media: a toxic tool for propaganda
Social media is becoming more toxic, a place where we berate others for not exercising enough, eating too much, or for doing things “wrong”. The place is awash with reaction reels responding to other people’s actions and diets while casting judgement. Seemingly less negative but to me, similarly harmful, are beauty trend videos with their twenty steps skin routines. Did you know that 10-year-olds have started adopting such time consuming, expensive and totally pointless routines? We are constantly sold stuff because we are told that we are not good enough and that from a young age. Why? Start them younger and you make more money, of course.
Who can afford all this: injecting, microdosing, supplements, special foods, surgery etc.? Not everyone. Some people will never have access to this, so in one glance we’ll also be able to assess the economic status of people because they won’t be tiny and taut. The shame will be doubled: you’re fat and you’re poor.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose
The story hasn’t changed; we merely changed the cover. The losers are always the same.
From one book to another, perhaps Camus had the answer all along, all we can do is to revolt. Camus invites us to think of Sisyphus as happy, and I think by that he means that Sisyphus accepts his fate but also chooses to relish in the freedom that he has. The task is hard and endless, but the way down is his and there’s joy in that. Our task is endless too, we’re doomed to be pressured in self-improvement for ever, but we can choose to engage or not in this act and we must seek out joy in our endeavours be they eating well, exercising or ageing the way we want. We are free to renounce the uniformity that society tries to force upon us and through that our diversity shall come forth.
Any thought renouncing unity exults diversity.
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