The popularity of drugs like Ozempic and a new pediatric recommendation that encourages fat teens to get weight-loss surgery show we still view fatness as a moral flaw that needs extreme intervention.
segment, Dr. Fatima Cody Stanford, an obesity doctor at Mass General Hospital and professor at Harvard Medical School, challenges the way we’ve been taught to think about obesity as a disease. As she notes, it’s not about “willpower” or simply “diet or exercise.” “My last patient that I saw today was a young woman who’s 39 who struggles with severe obesity,” Stanford said. “She’s been working out 5 to 6 times a week, consistently. She’s eating very little.
She also argues that obesity is genetic: In other words, if you were born to fat parents, then there’s a 50-85% likelihood of being fat even if you change your diet, exercise, sleep well, and manage your stress. Obesity, then, isn’t a moral failure; it’s more complex than that, and yet, Wegovy and its counterpoint, Ozempic, are being touted as possible solutions for this ever-growing epidemic.
Of course, there’s a catch 22: Once you stop taking the medication, most people regain the weight they’ve lost. In that way, these medications are no different than any other diet — and they come with even more dire side effects. As Dr. Caroline Apovian, codirector of the Weight Management and Wellness Center at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, told, side effects can range from nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea to pancreatitis.
This isn’t the first time physicians have peddled a miracle cure for obesity without considering the potential consequences. In the ’90s, as concerns about the size of Americans grew, doctors began describing the combination drug fenfluramine and phentermine , better known as, to patients with the express goal of helping them lose weight.
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