Credit score: Moe Magners from Pexels
Since Wegovy obtained approval as a weight reduction therapy in 2021, there was large demand for GLP-1 medication. These medication cut back starvation and suppress the “food noise” that may make it troublesome to drop pounds.
However whereas these medication have been a gamechanger for a lot of who’ve struggled to drop pounds, it wasn’t lengthy earlier than the backlash in opposition to them began. In response, high-profile celebrities resembling Serena Williams have opened up about utilizing these medication within the hopes that it might counter the rising stigma of utilizing them.
Sadly, it is in all probability going to take greater than movie star endorsement to alter the way in which society views people who find themselves chubby. Weight-loss drug stigma is simply the most recent type of “fatphobia.”
Weight and weight problems have lengthy been stigmatized in our society. Weight problems is even thought-about by some to be an ethical failing, quite than a results of an individual’s distinctive biology interacting with advanced societal and environmental forces. This false impression has contributed to weight stigma and weight bias, the place folks might maintain adverse attitudes towards people who find themselves chubby and should even discriminate in opposition to them.
Whereas fashionable initiatives lately have aimed to advocate for the acceptance of all our bodies no matter measurement (such because the physique positivity motion), stigma in opposition to bigger our bodies continues to be the norm, as our work has proven.
Earlier this 12 months, we carried out analysis on perceptions of well being and weight. As a part of our survey, we requested 143 individuals to explain photographs of adults of various physique weights. These photographs depicted folks participating in so-called “healthy” and “unhealthy” conduct—resembling exercising or mendacity on a sofa.
The outcomes had been stark. Images of slender folks elicited extra pleasant or heat feedback from individuals. Nevertheless, photographs of individuals with weight problems had been persistently described utilizing adverse and stigmatizing language, resembling “lazy,” “dirty,” “slobbish” and “unappealing.”
The message was clear. You are solely as wholesome and fascinating as your physique measurement. Although physique measurement is just not a very good indicator of metabolic well being, our work exhibits that slimness continues to be extremely valued and seen as a marker of being wholesome—no matter an individual’s precise well being standing.
Though most individuals understood that the causes of weight problems are advanced and never simply because of life-style decisions, this perception didn’t have an effect on their attitudes towards folks with weight problems. Weight bias nonetheless seems to be a permissible type of discrimination to some.
With the usage of weight reduction medication turning into more and more extra widespread, one analysis workforce hypothesized that these medication would possibly change attitudes towards weight problems—serving to our society see that weight is extra associated to biology than willpower. They carried out two surveys to uncover whether or not weight reduction medication had any impact on lowering weight bias.
The outcomes from that survey confirmed that nothing has modified relating to weight stigma. Contributors overwhelmingly thought that weight problems is controllable via willpower—and that the usage of weight reduction medication is unfair and the “easy way out.”
Judging folks for taking weight reduction medication is merely a brand new variation of weight stigma. Individuals are first negatively judged for being chubby within the first place—however then judged once more for present process the “wrong sort” of therapy.
Though important and long-lasting weight reduction via behavioral adjustments alone is extraordinarily uncommon, taking weight reduction medication is seen by some as “cheating.”
What folks need to see is “good old-fashioned hard work.” Analysis exhibits that persons are extra prone to see somebody in a adverse gentle if they do not assume that particular person is placing within the effort to drop pounds.
The “right way” is usually considered exercising willpower, being extra bodily energetic and consuming much less. Utilizing weight-loss medication is seen by some as proof that individuals with weight problems are “too weak” or “too lazy” to drop pounds in a manner that’s perceived as being appropriate.
The hurt of GLP-1 stigma
Utilizing a GLP-1 drug as a weight reduction methodology is judged extra harshly than dropping pounds via conventional strategies.
Concern of this adverse judgment is reportedly driving some customers to take GLP-1 medication in secret, even hiding their use from family members.
We presently do not know the total scale and impact of weight reduction drug stigma. It is doable that it may deter folks from looking for therapy with these medicines and even enhance social isolation as customers withdraw for worry of being judged.
Weight stigma is already dangerous to bodily and psychological well being—resulting in poorer well-being and even depressive signs. The burden of conserving use of those medication non-public may additional enhance the danger of those harms.
Worryingly, it may even cease folks from looking for medical consideration for any negative effects they might expertise, whether or not that is gentle gastrointestinal issues to uncommon, doubtlessly extreme issues resembling thyroid tumors, extreme gastrointestinal issues and a uncommon eye situation which will end in imaginative and prescient loss.
Individuals utilizing weight-loss medication should additionally navigate the potential psychological facets of GLP-1 therapy. Alongside adverse judgment of taking the medication, there could also be nervousness about provide and affordability, the specter of weight regain and an altered relationship with meals.
It is darkly ironic that, regardless of the elevated consciousness and use of GLP-1 medication in our society, weight stigma continues to be so prevalent. The social, emotional and bodily results of utilizing these medication quantity to a pricey dedication and isn’t, the truth is, an “easy way out.”
Offered by
The Dialog
This text is republished from The Dialog below a Artistic Commons license. Learn the unique article.
Quotation:
Weight reduction drug stigma exhibits society nonetheless holds adverse attitudes in direction of physique weight and weight problems (2025, October 12)
retrieved 12 October 2025
from https://medicalxpress.com/information/2025-10-weight-loss-drug-stigma-society.html
This doc is topic to copyright. Other than any honest dealing for the aim of personal examine or analysis, no
half could also be reproduced with out the written permission. The content material is supplied for data functions solely.
