Serena Williams is now Promoting Ozympic

#TransparentTuesday

Hi friend,

This week I saw the ad, in which Serena Williams—one of the greatest tennis players of all time—says she used GLP-1 medications to lose weight, and is now partnering with a telehealth company to sell and promote them.

You might have heard people talking about the more common GLP-1 brand names like Ozympic or Wegovy, but the term “GLP-1s” just refers to the whole category of semaglutide medications that were originally developed to treat type 2 diabetes, and have since exploded as an extremely popular weight loss medication for anyone who wants it.

To be clear, these medications can be life-saving for the people who need them, so please know that today I’m only referring to their use as a weight loss drug, not as treatment for diabetes. And even within that, I am not inherently opposed to their use, or judgmental of the individuals who choose to use them— as I talked about in this blog post from last winter!

Ok. Now let’s talk about the fact that Serena Williams is taking (and promoting) weight loss drugs.

This news is interesting and relevant for a few reasons, but the biggest one to me is that, put very simply, Serena is not fat.

Of course, people of all body shapes and sizes have been taking these medications to lose weight for years now, so it’s not exactly shocking that a non-fat person is taking them. Any number of non-fat celebrities and civilians take GLP-1s in order to do things like “quiet food noise,” “feel more comfortable in their bodies,” “prioritize their health,” and “lose those last 10lbs.” (All phrases that I do take issue with, because they’re based on some false and stigmatizing assumptions about health and weight.)

But despite the existence of these stories anecdotally, these medications have primarily been marketed and discussed in the mainstream so far as a “treatment for obesity,” which is to say, as a way for very fat people to become less fat, or for fat people to become not fat. 

The advertising for these drugs generally features “small-fat” people talking about how GLP-1s helped them lose weight and “get their lives back,” so that the viewer is invited to imagine how fat they must have been before, and feel happy for them.

I think we can all agree that if these ads featured a bunch of already-thin people who used GLP-1s to get even thinner, viewers would be more likely to feel irritated, judgmental, or even personally attacked. Instead of thinking “wow, good for her!” we’d be thinking “wow she is ridiculously vain,” or “yikes, she might have an underlying eating disorder.” 

If the ads featured thin people, we would have all caught on a lot sooner that these drugs exist more to address body image issues than health issues… and the drug companies know that, which is why they didn’t do it.

These companies knew that, in order to gain credibility in the public eye, their drugs needed to be associated with health, vitality, and self-care, and not vanity, body insecurity, or mental health issues. They had to present themselves as a solution to fatness, and they had to rely on our (false) assumptions that fatness is a medical issue. 

That way, when fat people took their drugs, everyone would celebrate them for finally “taking control of their health.” And when non-fat people take their drugs, they might get a few raised eyebrows here and there, but the overall positive associations between GLP-1s and health that were established through marketing will allow those people to avoid too much judgment or cynicism. 

Because of this, I think Serena’s announcement marks a new era. 

For four years now since they came onto the market as a weight-loss solution, the drug companies have worked hard to cultivate a certain image, in which their medications were purely about helping people improve their health, and not at all about helping insecure people conform to societal beauty or body ideals. 

“This isn’t about vanity or body image,” they’ve been assuring us for years. 

Those of us who work in the field of body image have always known better, and seen through the ruse, and plenty of folks have called them out for promoting an unhealthy or unrealistic “thin ideal.” But they’ve always denied it, and worked hard to distance themselves from the very idea.

Until now.

Now, it seems, we’ve turned some kind of corner where these drugs are ubiquitous enough that the companies selling them don’t have to pretend that it’s about health anymore. 

Now they can admit that it’s not just fat people who use their products. Now they can acknowledge that they’re positioning weight loss as a solution for body insecurities, no matter what your reason for those insecurities might be. 

This is a dangerous corner, because it reinforces the idea that if you feel self-conscious about the ways in which your body falls short of society’s expectations and “ideals,” the solution isn’t to change society (or your relationship to yourself). 

The solution, as they now seem to be unapologetically saying, is that you must change your body. 

If this doesn’t immediately land for you as alarming, I want you to imagine that your child comes home from school one day and says she’s been bullied by an older classmate. Her bully has really specific “rules” that she has to follow in order to avoid getting mocked or assaulted. (For the sake of this thought experiment, let’s say that she has to wear her shirts backward, hand over her lunch money, and never speak above a whisper.)

Now let’s imagine that upon hearing all this, you say to your child: 

“Oh no! I don’t want you getting mocked or assaulted, so from now on you must always wear your shirts backward, give them your lunch money, and whisper!”

I mean, it’s certainly one way to protect them, right? It’s an option. 

But while it might theoretically prevent them from the immediate threat of bullying, it would send a much more harmful and dangerous message, wouldn’t it? It would teach her that the only way to cope with oppression is to conform to what your oppressor wants. It would teach her that injustice must be accepted and tolerated quietly, and that her bully’s preferences are more important than her agency, autonomy, or humanity.

Clearly, most parents wouldn’t handle it like this, and for good reason. But isn’t that exactly how these companies are suggesting we handle the “bullies” that are society’s oppressive beauty and body ideals?

They’re suggesting that instead of standing up against injustice, or centering our own agency and autonomy, the best way to handle bullying is just to… do whatever the bully says. 

Again, I don’t judge anyone for dealing with their own oppression, or addressing their own body image issues, in whatever way they choose. I know Serena Williams has spent her entire career having her body criticized, bullied, and torn apart in the public eye, and to be honest if GLP-1s give her a little bit of peace and confidence after all that, I totally get it. 

But the fact that a thin, fit, and otherwise healthy woman feels like she needs to lose weight and get her “pre-baby body” back (as she suggests in the ad) in order to feel confident and safe… that’s a fucking problem. 

And the fact that, after aggressively laying the groundwork for their drugs to be accepted and celebrated by pretending they were only about helping people get healthy, these companies seem to now be comfortable admitting that actually they’re about helping insecure people conform to unrealistic beauty and body ideals… that’s alarming. 

Is this really the direction we want to go, as a society? Are we really ok with saying the solution to bullying is to do whatever the bully wants? 

Personally, I’m not.

Big hug,

Jessi

PS If you’re not ok with this either, and you’re looking for help and support on the journey to overcoming body image issues or navigating unrealistic body/body ideals, I can help you! Rest assured that with me, you will never be met with judgement about the decisions you make when it comes to your body. Whether you’re on (or considering) GLP-1s, trying to lose weight, or a fan of Botox/fillers/plastic surgery, as long as your goal is to feel more comfortable in your own skin, you are safe and welcome in my space. Hit reply or apply for coaching with me here if you want to work together this fall!