Gen X is paying a price for its Mounjaro midlife crisis

Women who came of age in the skinny-chic Nineties are turning to weight-loss jabs in droves – but lack a proper understanding of the consequences

- Eleanor Mills

“Are you on it?” she whispered as we swam out into the lake.

It was a beautiful, sunny day and I was leading a group of midlife women - or Queenagers, as I like to call them - on a rejuvenating retreat. I didn't need to ask what “it” was. The whip-smart fiftysomething meant Mounjaro, or Wegovy - those miracle jabs that aid weight loss are sweeping through the midlife female population like a particularly contagious cold. It's now so common for women of a certain age to be taking this medication that if - like me - you've shed a few pounds just by walking, swimming, and cutting out processed foods, no one believes you.

The next weekend, I sat down next to a friend on a camping trip. She was wearing tight jean shorts and a fitted top (unusual, as she is often quite body-conscious).

"I feel great," she said. "I've finally shifted my meno-belly and am back in my old clothes. It's costing £200 a month, but it's worth every penny!" The fact that she was on “the pen”, as these injectables are known, didn't even need to be spelled out. She was messianic about how the food noise in her head had been silenced and how, after a lifetime of always feeling too large, she had finally reached her "ideal weight".

My friend was only a size 12 before she started the jabs; she certainly didn't have a BMI of 35 or above, which is meant to be the threshold for a Mounjaro prescription. “Oh,” she said breezily, “I lied to the online clinic. I told them I was 10kg heavier than I am and sent them a really unflattering old photo where my tummy had rolls and looked huge.”

But what about your health, I asked. Her expression said it all: who cares? I'm thin!

Many women I know had a Mounjaro summer. And many, I think, are having a Mounjaro midlife crisis too - which is worrying on a number of levels.