Unpack how Ozempic—a diabetes medication—went viral, and what its off-label use reveals about image, thinness, and access to healthcare in today’s culture.
{{ vm.level2.list.title }}
{{ vm.tagsGroup }}
11 Aug 2025
7 Min Read
Preevena Devi (Contributing Writer)
Unpack how Ozempic—a diabetes medication—went viral, and what its off-label use reveals about image, thinness, and access to healthcare in today’s culture.
A decade ago, anyone searching for weight loss advice would come across a familiar formula:
Today, if you type ‘how to lose weight’ into your browser, Ozempic is more likely to pop up than any diet plan. It doesn’t appear in official ads or brand endorsements; instead, it’s quietly embedded in internet culture—surfacing in celebrity transformations, before-and-after bodies, and viral glow-ups. These posts may look like personal wins, but the message often reads like a sales pitch—and it’s rarely subtle:
A slim, polished, confident person appears on screen.
‘This is your sign to get on Ozempic,’ they say.
Or: ‘I lost 15 pounds without even trying.’
A cut. A turn. A transformation.
Cue the comments, cue the likes, cue the shares.
At first glance, their weight loss might seem aspirational. But using Ozempic to achieve it is far more complicated—raising medical, ethical, and societal questions that run deeper than appearance.
Ozempic is the brand name for semaglutide, a medication originally developed to treat type 2 diabetes. It belongs to a class of drugs called GLP-1 receptor agonists, which mimic a hormone that helps regulate blood sugar levels, slow digestion, and suppress appetite. In diabetic patients, semaglutide improves insulin sensitivity, prevents glucose spikes, and reduces the risk of major cardiovascular events like stroke and heart attack.
In the 1980s, many diabetes medications came with an unintended side effect: weight gain. This made the disease more difficult to manage and often led to earlier reliance on insulin therapy—a counterproductive cycle for patients. That began to change in the 2000s with the introduction of GLP-1 receptor agonists, which not only supported glycaemic control but also promoted weight loss, allowing for more effective disease management.
As reports of this unexpected side effect circulated, Ozempic soon attracted attention beyond clinical and pharmaceutical circles—particularly in image-driven communities—as a fast-track solution for weight loss. By 2020, off-label use among non-diabetic individuals was on the rise. By 2022, it had burst into pop culture.
In today’s image-saturated society, pop culture doesn’t just reflect its values; it repackages them. And when it comes to wellness, body image, and weight loss, few phenomena have had as swift and sweeping an impact as the rise of Ozempic in celebrity and influencer spheres.
It crept in quietly—whispers on red carpets about sudden weight loss here, celebrity interviews citing euphemisms like ‘hormonal resets’ or ‘metabolic support’ there—but the transformations were too conspicuous to ignore. Fan forums and gossip sites connected the dots, especially as insider leaks and anonymous tips pointed to a new injectable weight-loss drug. The name? Ozempic. From there, it snowballed: Is Hollywood on Ozempic? Late-night hosts joked about it, glossy magazines covered it, and TikTok buzzed. What began as a rumour quickly became routine.
When Oprah Winfrey—a cultural icon long entwined with public discourse on weight and body image—publicly acknowledged her use of weight loss medication, it sent shockwaves. Her admission wasn’t just personal; it was political. Here was someone who had spent decades speaking candidly about her struggles with weight and wellness, now turning to medical intervention. It signalled a shift: a quiet indictment of a culture that never really allowed her to exist outside of the ‘before and after’ narrative, where her body was always framed as a work in progress.
But Oprah wasn’t alone. A growing number of high-profile figures—from Hollywood stars and reality TV personalities to social media influencers—were either in the headlines or between the lines for using semaglutide-based medications like Ozempic and Wegovy. Their transformations fed a new kind of aspirational content—not fuelled by fitness regimes or lifestyle overhauls, but by pharmacological shortcuts. Paparazzi shots, side-by-side comparisons, and beauty features didn’t ease the pressures of idealised body standards; they intensified them.
Meanwhile, TikTok became a cultural accelerator. Under hashtags like #ozempicface and #glp1journey, influencers—many without medical credentials or diabetic diagnoses—shared weight loss updates, prescription tips, and ‘first injection’ vlogs. These casual portrayals stripped away the clinical context, recasting Ozempic as a cosmetic fix rather than a therapeutic prescription medication.
But this normalisation carries consequences. It blurs the line between treatment and trend, reducing weight to a visual metric—where thinness is not just desired, but expected. In a world where fame and fortune grant easier access and curate mediated realities, the broader public is left chasing similar results—often without proper medical guidance, personalised care, or meaningful awareness of the potential risks.
At the heart of Ozempic’s popularity lies a deep-rooted cultural obsession with thinness—once primarily imposed on women, but now increasingly directed at men and gender-diverse individuals. For decades, global beauty standards—largely shaped by Western media—have equated thinness with health, success, and self-worth. And while body positivity movements have gained ground, the underlying belief remains: thin is better.
This belief is reinforced by a multibillion-dollar diet industry and an ever-expanding wellness economy that sells transformation in the form of protein powders, detox teas, calorie-tracking apps—and, most recently, injectable medications. Here, the ideal body isn’t necessarily a healthy one; it’s a controlled one. And control, it turns out, can be bought.
Ozempic enters this marketplace as a perfect product (for those who can afford it): fast-acting, pharma-backed (but popularly hijacked), and sold as an effortless solution. No emotional work. No self-reflection. No societal accountability. Just results. In a culture that thrives on instant gratification, it’s no surprise that Ozempic is flying off the shelves. But what drives this isn’t personal failure—it’s structural.
Healthcare systems often fail to approach weight holistically, treating fatness as a one-dimensional problem to be solved rather than the multifaceted issue it is—complicated by genetics, trauma, and inequality. In that vacuum, capitalism exploits our insecurities by turning every solution—from a salad to a syringe—into a product, commodifying health and, in the process, pathologising certain bodies.
Perhaps most insidiously, the stigma surrounding fatness is so entrenched that many will go to extreme lengths—emotionally, physically, and financially—to avoid being labelled ‘overweight.’ The rise of Ozempic isn’t just a pharmaceutical trend; it’s a symptom of a society that fears fat more than it respects health, and rewards thinness more than it recognises realities.
But cultural obsession has consequences. As Ozempic gains traction as a fast track to thinness, its rising misuse is tied to real-world costs—both medical and societal. So before we marvel at its results, it’s worth asking: at what price?
First and foremost, Ozempic is not FDA-approved for weight loss. Physically, users may experience a spectrum of side effects—some mild, others more severe. Common symptoms include nausea, vomiting, constipation, diarrhoea, fatigue, and dizziness. More concerning are secondary symptoms such as muscle mass loss and hair thinning, which suggest deeper nutritional and physiological imbalances beyond appearance. In rare cases, users have reported gallstones, pancreatitis, or kidney dysfunction.
Psychologically, there are growing concerns about the drug’s impact on eating behaviours and body image, particularly among individuals with a history of food or weight-related struggles. Compounding this is the emotional toll of rapid weight regain after stopping the drug—an outcome that not only undermines perceived progress but may also trigger weight cycling (the repeated loss and regain of weight) and long-term dependency.
On a broader scale, the off-label use of Ozempic has contributed to widespread supply shortages, with serious consequences for diabetic patients. In countries such as the U.S., Australia, and parts of Europe, pharmacies have been plagued by limited stock and months-long delays, leaving patients who genuinely need the drug for blood sugar management scrambling for alternatives.
These shortages also expose structural disparities in the healthcare system. Individuals with the financial means and access to private healthcare can secure prescriptions for weight loss, while others—often those with legitimate medical needs—are left without. It’s a stark reminder that when health trends are popularised, no matter how glamorous, they can come at a steep cost for those most vulnerable.
Ozempic may be the drug of the moment, but its meteoric rise reveals something far more enduring—society’s most uncomfortable truths: a culture still gripped by fatphobia, the seduction of quick fixes, and privileges afforded to a few at the expense of many.
If we want a future where health isn’t sold as aspiration, where bodies aren’t judged by size, and where medication serves need rather than desire, we need more than regulation—we need a reckoning. It’s not just with how we treat weight, but with how we define health, who we deem worthy of care, and why we continue to reach for pharmacological shortcuts to ease cultural discomforts.
There is no injection for that. Only the long, difficult work of unlearning stigma, rethinking value, and rebuilding a culture where care isn’t conditional—and where health, if pursued, is grounded in discipline, dignity, and truth—not aesthetics.
Preevena Devi pursued Cambridge A Level at Taylor's College before attending Monash University. She is a biomedical science student, a passionate feminist, and a firm believer in the transformative power of the written word to change the world!
