Mum knows best... until it comes to weight-loss injections

It was the term that made it all click: almond mom.

- Sarah Manavis

The phrase, which went viral in 2023, helped to pinpoint a specific but common experience shared by millennials online: growing up with pseudo-health-focused parents who either deliberately or tacitly promoted the diet fads of the 90s and 00s, all neatly summarised by the common suggestion to "just have some almonds" when hungry.

The term captured the trickle-down effect of being raised by parents whose relationship with food developed in the era of Atkins and Special K diets. Now, gen Z and gen Alpha are beginning to encounter the almond mom's next form: the Ozempic mom, the growing number of mothers preaching body positivity while taking glucagon-like peptide-1s (GLP-1s) for non-medical reasons - or even sourcing them for their children.

It's hard to overstate the rapid rise of GLP-1s, which are now taken by an estimated 1.5 million people in Britain. Over the past two years they have become not just a diet aid but a symbol of our confused cultural discussion of body image. Is Ozempic the most damaging agent in the recent repopularisation of thinness? Or is it empowering, allowing users to take control and shut out "food noise"? All within a popular culture struggling to cling on to the body positivity movement of the 2010s.