The Dark Side of Weight Loss

How dropping pounds using slimming drugs like OZempic made these women realize they had been victims of fatphobia for years

- EMILY FARACHE

AFTER JULIE SIMONSON SURVIVED A SEXUAL assault, she turned to the 7-Eleven across the street for comfort food. Her weight skyrocketed, along with her shame.

"I would cope by basically overeating," the psychotherapist from Philadelphia says, recalling how her health declined in the aftermath of the attack.

Eventually she turned to gastric bypass surgery and lost 160 pounds. Simonson, 50, endured skin removal surgery, a tummy tuck and an arm lift, but the pounds slowly came back, despite her best efforts to restrict calories and work with a trainer.

Finally, in 2023, Simonson's doctor put her on Mounjaro, one of the new class of highly touted diabetes and weight-loss drugs, and the pounds finally came off and stayed off. She says she feels amazing.

But beneath Simonson's joy, she's found a darker side to living at a healthy weight-people are treating her like a celebrity, even though she's the same person she's always been.

"My interests haven't changed. My sense of humor hasn't changed. Fundamentally who I am hasn't changed," Simonson says indignantly. "That's why it's frustrating when people are nicer to me because I'm not really any different."

As tens of millions of Americans reap the benefits of new obesity therapies, some are finding a bitter confirmation of the fatphobia they've experienced all their lives-and are grappling with how to deal with theirr own, internal bias now that they're "on the other side."

It's yet another aspect of a new health and weight revolution powered by a class of drugs called GLP-1 agonists that's reshaping American society.

As many Americans lose weight to improve their health, their old bodies-and memories of past mistreatment-continue to cast a shadow over them.

They're learning all over, in a new way, how awful neighbors, co-workers and strangers can be.