Weight loss culture in America is nothing new. Our collective obsession with being thin is more than a societal ideal—it’s practically a religion.
But in a country where self-improvement through hard work is lauded, even something to aspire to, the quick-fix GLP-1 weight loss revolution, without the “no-pain, no-gain” labor, just rubs people the wrong way.
Despite the popularity of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy and Zepbound and their impressive effectiveness, while many people praise the dramatic results, a new Rice University study published last month in the International Journal of Obesity finds your friends and neighbors are still judging you for how you lose the weight, especially if you’ve gained it back. As the popular Apple TV show by the same name says in its Season 2 trailer “In a town [country] where perception is nine-tenth of the law, you have to keep up appearances.”
As much as Americans covet being skinny, almost as much as being rich, we have always had a love-hate relationship with our weight. In a country where 72% of adults age 20 and older are overweight, including obese, finding a “magic bullet” to solve this very-American problem is something that has fueled the million-dollar, now billion-dollar, weight loss industry for decades.
But, according to the study, their is a particular stigma for those who lose weight on GLP-1s—often a lot of weight, fast—and regain that weight after discontinuing the medication.
Researchers asked study participants to evaluate people who lost weight on the medications compared with those who used diet and exercise, or didn’t lose weight at all. The results were clear. They found GLP‑1 users were judged more harshly than those who lost weight through diet and exercise, but even more striking, is that they judged those who took the medication more harshly than someone who lost no weight at all.
“We expected there might be some stigma around using a GLP-1,” study co-author Erin Standen, assistant professor of psychological sciences at Rice University, said in a news release. “But what surprised us was the extent of it.”
Their conclusion: Using the drugs can come with more judgment than not losing weight at all, what researchers have dubbed “The GLP-1 paradox” and highlight a complicated reality—”stigma does not disappear with weight loss, it simply takes a different form.”
