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Skinny jabs. Weight loss injections. The new miracle drugs to “tackle the ob*sity crisis” once and for all. Drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy are being hailed as wonder drugs. Oprah raves about weight loss drugs and says “ob*sity is a disease” so it’s not about willpower. This apparently can help get rid of weight stigma…by reinforcing weight loss and thin ideals? This doesn’t make much sense to me. “Ob*sity” is not a disease, nor a behaviour or an eating disorder. It’s a body size measure and there is wide range of people of varying degrees of health within that bracket. It’s not something that needs fixing. However, I understand that many people feel unhappy in themselves and want to make changes, though sadly this often becomes about making themselves smaller using any means possible. I’m not against people who choose to take weight loss intentions, in the same way that I’m not anti people who diet. When I use the term “anti-diet” I mean I stand against diet culture, the thin ideal and weight stigma/biases in our society as these are harmful to so many people. It’s important to make an informed choice, and how can we really do that when we are swimming in diet culture narratives? The decision to take weight loss drugs needs to be based on reliable information, and should you choose to go ahead, it needs to be done safely, through the correct channels and with plenty of support before and after. Having counselling before can help you explore your relationship with food and your body, as it may be that you’re experiencing disordered eating or negative body image thoughts. If this is the case, taking weight loss injections will not help – it will likely only drive the thoughts and feelings that underpin your relationship with food and make things worse. Weight loss injections: what are they and how do they work? Weight injections are for people in higher BMI (Body Mass Index) categories, and in the UK they are usually available through a referral to a weight management service. It’s meant to be more of a last resort, like weight loss surgeries, and only available for those who “really need it” i.e. higher weights. I don’t mention specific weights as this can be triggering and further reinforces weight stigma. BMI itself is very outdated and not fit for purpose – you can learn more about that in this article by Aubrey Gordon aka Your Fat Friend. Weight loss injections work by making people feel full for longer. The idea is, if you’re less hungry, you’ll eat less and that means you’ll lose weight. This may work in the short term whilst you’re on the medication, but when you come off it you will gain it back. However, eating less doesn’t necessarily equal thinness – lots of people in larger bodies have likely tried eating less, perhaps having tried every diet under the sun, and are not thin (if diets “worked” wouldn’t everyone be thin, right?) Even if people do lose weight they may not be thin, as for many people thinness is not just possible. Our weight is decided by many factors and genetics is a big part of that. If people can be “naturally slim” then people can also be “naturally fat”. Your body will work hard to keep you at a “set point range”, your body’s comfortable weight range, in a similar way to how our bodies regulate our temperature and our need to go to the toilet. Our bodies are clever and we should trust them but due to diet culture, many of us have lost that trust sadly.  Do weight loss injections "work"? The long-term “success” of weight loss injections is not yet known as research has not been going long enough to be able to adequately tell. Whilst some diets and weight loss interventions can result in weight loss in the short-term weight is often gained back in the long run. In the UK, weight loss injections are only prescribed on the NHS for a maximum of 2 years, and one study has shown that people regain two-thirds of the lost weight within two years of stopping. Short-term side effects include headaches, nausea, sickness, diarrhoea, acid reflux, constipation and more. Long-term side effects of staying on weight loss injections for many years aren’t yet known, and due to fears of weight regain it is concerning how many people may try to stay on them for life. These drugs were first intended for people with diabetes, so there have been shortages recently since its growing popularity for weight loss. Celebrities, and thinner people generally, are using it to “drop those last few pounds”, many of whom can afford to pay for it privately. Purchasing weight loss injections can be expensive plus there are risks of purchasing them online. The risks of buying weight loss injections In the documentary, “The truth about skinny jabs” with Anna Richardson, she visits some private clinics in London where they were happy to prescribe weight loss injections, without even taking any health markers, and despite her not being fat. They did so with a hefty bill of course. Anna also experiments with buying weight loss injections online, which she does with alarming ease. The risks of this are many; you can’t trust what’s in them, you might get ripped off or scammed, and anyone young or vulnerable could potentially buy them including those with eating disorders. This is a very dangerous way of accessing these drugs, you really don’t know what you’re getting. People on social media also target people for sales and these are often scammers. If you decide to take weight loss injections please do so through the proper medical channels, and if you do not meet the criteria for them, do not take them. Body shame is big money The idea that being thinner equals happier, healthier and more respectable is the entire basis of diet culture. Companies thrive off the body shame people experience when they think they’re not thin enough (even if they’re not fat). A common myth is that people at higher weights are so because they eat too much. This idea is way too simplistic, it is not as basic as “calories in, calories out”. When it is seen as individual responsibility and just an easy “choice” to lose weight, it’s putting more blame and shame on people. Even if two people of different sizes ate exactly the same they could be completely different sizes. The idea that everyone has the ability to be thin, and that thinner is better, causes so much harm in our society and is a major driver for disordered eating. “The best-known environmental contributor to the development of eating disorders is the sociocultural idealization of thinness.” - NEDA Using weight loss injections only reinforces the thin ideal and the fear of weight gain and increases the harmful experiences of fatphobia and weight stigma. These drugs do not help people with their health behaviours, or other aspects associated with better health like reducing stress and better sleep. Weight loss injections offer the same enticing dieting promise that thinner equals happier and healthier, which is simply just not true. Ultimately, in the same way that every other new diet culture fad says they are “the one” that finally makes everyone thin, they’re not. There are lots of fat people in the world and we will always still be here. Eating disorders There are sadly too many people who are overlooked for having an eating disorder due to their body size. Many people may not recognise that their eating is “disordered” as diet culture has normalised restrictive eating, over-exercise and the pursuit of thinness “no matter what”. Due to myths and stereotypes about eating disorders, people often assume you need to be thin to have one, when in fact most people with eating disorders are not underweight. With disordered eating labels such as Atypical Anorexia (Anorexia but not at a low weight) and Orthorexia (a preoccupation with “healthy” or “clean” eating), the lines between eating disorders, dieting and “healthy eating” are becoming increasingly blurred. This, coupled with weight stigma, means that people are often prescribed/recommended weight loss interventions when this will likely only drive the disordered eating. A person who has struggled for a long time with dieting or disordered eating is not going to be helped by yet another thing that attempts to make them thin. The diet cycle thrives off shame, and every time an intervention fails, people blame themselves or their lack of willpower, when it’s not their fault at all. Diets are made to keep you coming back, diet companies wouldn’t make any money otherwise. Weight loss drugs, manufactured by big pharmaceutical companies, are also made so you stay on them, potentially costing you a fortune and taking on the unknown long-term risks as well as short-term side effects. Diet companies and big pharma do not care about your health. It’s all about money and they profit big time off your body shame. In conclusion… If you’re concerned about your health or have fears and anxieties about your weight, please consider exploring your relationship with food and yourself before any kind of weight loss attempts or drugs. Counselling can help, as well as learning more about disordered eating, diet culture, and body acceptance and intuitive eating. Eating and body image issues can have deeper food causes and influences which will not be helped with weight loss attempts, this just keeps the cycle going. To break the cycle and make lasting changes, a deeper exploration is needed. I offer counselling sessions online, please check out my counselling page for more info. I also offer workshops on disordered eating, body image and weight stigma, please check out my workshops page for more information.
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