Staying fat in the age of Ozmpic

I’m choosing to prioritize my health over GLP-1 mania

As I drive to the grocery store, I have to pass by three billboards, all advertising weight loss. The ads are simple: one line with a website listed below. Vague promises of weight loss delivered to your door or weight loss for women are made. The billboards are all for the same company, one of the many for-profit telehealth companies that has sprung up across Canada. Each time I drive by I let out a small sigh. In the age of GLP-1 drugs, I can’t go a single day without hearing this now ubiquitous message: “Lose weight. NOW.”

It’s been about ten years since I stopped pursuing intentional weight loss. When I mention this, the average person seems to hear “I gave up on my health.” But if anything, the opposite is true. When I gave up the pursuit of thinness, I finally opened myself up to engaging in healthy behaviours. I learned to measure progress not by a number on a scale but rather by how I felt in terms of strength and endurance (and improved blood labs). But in the age of Ozempic, society seems to have fully fallen for the myth that thinness=health. I should start by acknowledging that GLP-1 drugs have been around for a while now but Ozempic specifically has been on the US market since December 2017. And while these drugs can absolutely serve a purpose and help diabetics to lower their overall blood sugar, they are not the silver bullet that pharmaceutical companies would have you believe.

In fact, I first learned about Ozempic in 2018 shortly after being diagnosed with PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome) and insulin resistance. A friend of mine who works in marketing told me about the drug which was about to be launched in Canada. “It started off as a medication for diabetics but they noticed a lot of people lost weight on it,” was her simple explanation. At first I was intrigued. Could this little shot be the cure to my problems? But as someone who has taken weight loss drugs in the past, with somewhat disastrous consequences, I decided to hold back. I wanted to wait and see. After all, how does the saying go? If something is too good to be true, it probably is.

Sure enough, it didn’t take long for news reports of the more disastrous side effects to come in. First, I learned about the risk of gastroparesis. In one news article, a diabetic woman using Ozempic suffered with “cyclic vomiting” even months after stopping the medication. Then came the news about loss of muscle mass and bone density. And more recently, studies have come out showing (unsurprisingly, in my opinion) that people who go off of these drugs gain the weight back faster than any other weight loss plan. Oh, and don’t forget the risk of scurvy. As I learn more about the multiple downsides of these drugs, I have to ask: If a fat person takes a GLP-1 to lose weight, and all their time on the drug is spent nauseated and in severe gastrointestinal distress is that health? Or is it penance?

In 2026, being a fat person who openly derides weight loss drugs makes me a target for fatphobic hate. How dare I refuse the “miracle drug” that is making people smaller? A guest on the podcast GLP-1 Truth Serum with Virgie Tovar sums it up like this: “There is a growing resentment against fat people because of GLP-1s wherein people feel like ‘well you could do something about this but you choose not to.’ [Our size] is seen as a double choice. You made bad choices and became fat. Now you’re fat and you are willfully refusing to get thin because you won’t take this medication.” Once again, weight loss is seen as synonymous with health. Never mind the slew of negative side effects that can come along with these drugs. Never mind the knowledge that weight cycling is worse for health than maintaining a higher weight. Never mind that there are studies showing that people who engage in healthy behaviours have improved health markers whether or not weight loss occurs. In 2026, refusing to risk my health to become smaller ironically has people believing that I am choosing illness over health. But the truth is, I am choosing myself. I decided a long time ago that I would simply do my best to eat filling and nutritious foods, exercise regularly, and let my body be whatever size it is going to be. While society continues to wage war on fatness, I am choosing peace.

If this essay resonated with you, I encourage you to join my Fat Folks Grief Circle, this Thursday at 8pm EDT.