Weight-loss culture in America is nothing new: Our collective obsession with being thin is more than a societal ideal—it’s practically a religion. But in a country where self-improvement through hard work is lauded, the quick-fix GLP-1 weight-loss revolution—without the “no-pain, no-gain” labor—might just rub people the wrong way.
That’s the suggestion of a new Rice University study published last month in the International Journal of Obesity.
According to the study, despite the popularity of glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy, and Zepbound and their impressive effectiveness, and even though many people praise the dramatic results, your friends and neighbors may still be judging you for how you lose the weight—especially if you’ve gained it back. (Because, as the popular Apple TV show Your Friends and Neighbors says in its Season 2 trailer: “In a town [country] where perception is nine-tenths of the law, you have to keep up appearances.”)
A particular stigma
As much as Americans covet being skinny—almost as much as being rich—we have always had a love-hate relationship with our weight. In a country where 72% of adults 20 and older are overweight or obese, finding a “magic bullet” to solve this problem is something that has fueled the now-billion-dollar weight-loss industry for decades.
But according to the Rice study, there is a particular stigma for those who lose weight on GLP-1s—often a lot of weight, fast—and regain that weight after discontinuing the medication.
Researchers asked study participants to evaluate people who lost weight on GLP-1 medications compared with those who used diet and exercise or didn’t lose weight at all. The results were clear: They found GLP‑1 users were judged more harshly than those who lost weight through diet and exercise.
But even more striking is that they judged people who took the medication more harshly than those who didn’t lose any weight.
“We expected there might be some stigma around using a GLP-1,” study coauthor Erin Standen, assistant professor of psychological sciences at Rice University, said in a news release. “But what surprised us was the extent of it.”
The conclusion: Using GLP-1 drugs can come with more judgment than not losing weight at all—what researchers have dubbed “the GLP-1 paradox.” The findings highlight a complicated reality: “Stigma does not disappear with weight loss; it simply takes a different form.”
