How Ozempic ate away the plus-size movement

A body-neutral fat activist reflects on how weight-loss drugs have erased the hard-won gains of the body neutrality campaign

- Ameya Nagarajan

How do we cope with the bombardment of ideas that our bodies need to be perfect; (below) Serena Williams in a campaign for telehealth company Ro.

My Instagram feed is very curated, so [rarely see things Idon’twant to. Eventhough I'ma fat 43-year old single woman, I don’t see weight loss, work out, or dating ads. So it took a while forthe Serena Williams Ozempic ad to crossmy path, and it did ina shocked reaction from one of the fat activists I follow. Curious, I looked it up.

Iwas expecting to be enraged, but my first reaction was bone deep sorrow, because here is possibly the greatest athlete alive, saying that, even though she won 23 grand slamsand has Olympic gold medals, even though she is adored and admired for her very apparent success, it was incomplete because her body wasn’t small enough.

Asabody-neutral fat activist, I think everyone is allowed to want the body they want and do what they want to get it. But as a human, it breaks my heart that what Serena is wasn’t enough, and she felt she had to do this. Maybe she had medical or sports reasons for needing that weight loss. Maybe sheis, like most women, deeply stressed by the way her body changes as it goesthrough life and age. Yes, lam deeply disappointed that a Black feminist icon now stands fora message that will almost certainly destroy thementaland physical health of many people, mostly women and girls.

But the thing that really causes the deep grief I am feeling is that the world has, so quickly, turned away from the beautiful cause of fat liberation.