Rachel Garrett Mercer remembers the day she was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.
“The first thing my doctor told me was that I ‘do not look diabetic,'” she said. “Looking back, it’s hard to imagine anyone saying that because diabetics don’t look like it. Everyone is different.”
After her diagnosis, Mercer’s everyday life changed completely. She’s been hooked up to an insulin pump and continuous glucose meter to monitor her insulin, but as she describes it, the disease isn’t a “set and forget” thing. She has to count carbs after every meal, snack, and vitamin and adjust insulin based on hormones at each stage of her cycle. When she wants to exercise, she has to check her blood sugar hours beforehand to determine if she needs to eat or take insulin. She also needs to watch the weather, as hot and humid days can spike her blood sugar. But she also found that her body changed as her life changed.
“I’ve had my own share of mental health issues because of my weight,” she said. “When I was diagnosed, I was very thin. But as my body self-regulated after the insulin injections, I gained weight again and then some. Going from being the skinny person in the mirror to being my fattest person has been a challenge.”
For people with diabetes, weight gain and a negative body image can be devastating — as they face blame for their disease, even from an uneducated public. But coupled with the pressures of pop culture and diet trends touting thin body types as ideal, the struggle can be all but impossible to manage.
“The shame that still surrounds diabetes is something that I’m personally so passionate about,” Mercer said. “I see young girls withholding their insulin because lack of insulin in a type 1 diabetic often means you lose weight, when you go into diabetic ketoacidosis your body is literally starving itself. This diabulimia is incredibly dangerous.”
And she is not alone. According to the International Journal of Eating Disorders, approximately 91 percent of all women are unhappy with their weight, with one in two adolescent girls self-identifying as a weight problem.
And we’re seeing these trends more and more among younger girls, in large part due to social media and celebrity endorsed diets. One trend that has gained significant popularity in the past year is the use of Ozempic, a diabetes drug that increases insulin sensitivity and suppresses appetite, which can lead to weight loss. The trend emerged on TikTok (an app that has historically served as home to anti-eating disorder content) and the drug has faced shortages that have coincided with its skyrocketing notoriety as a weight-loss miracle drug of sorts.
“Ozempic is an FDA-approved drug for type 2 diabetes,” said Dr. Catherine Prato-Lefkowitz, MBA, MSN, RN. “It is a GLP-1 receptor agonist, meaning it lowers fasting and post-meal blood sugar by stimulating insulin secretion. Insulin is needed to get sugar into the body’s cells. Insulin helps blood sugar enter cells so it can be used for energy.”
The drug’s intended purpose is to help diabetics manage their insulin levels, and it’s perfectly legal for a healthcare provider to prescribe Ozempic off-label for weight loss. But celebrities who recently cited extreme weight loss have shown a direct correlation with a spike in Google searches for the recipe. After the 2022 Met Gala, searches for “ozempic” hit an all-time high, followed by even higher numbers the week after, when Kim Kardashian shared her body scan results that showed she reduced her body fat by 7 percentage points over the past year to 18 Percent.
We almost never know for sure what exact methods celebrities use to look the way they do, but it’s almost always a combination of resources and measures that are financially inaccessible to most people. From liposuction to botox to full fledged reconstructive surgeries, there is very little plastic surgeons can’t do to transform the way a person looks.
And while correlation doesn’t equal causation, the bottom line is that more and more young women are trying to mimic their celebrity’s body types and plan to do so through some quick fix or whatever means.
“Weight loss takes time,” said Prato-Lefkowitz. “Everyone wishes there was a ‘magic pill’ people could take to lose weight. The safest way to lose weight is to talk to your provider, agree on a healthy eating plan for your body, and set small goals that are realistic and achievable.”
As of October, #Ozempic has 210.8 million views on TikTok, up from 155.2 million since the end of April. The hashtag #OzempicWeightLoss is second with 78.6 million views, and #OzempicChallenge, which refers to a weight loss challenge with the drug, is third with 2.2 million.
Diabetics need drugs like Ozempic to regulate their blood sugar, and when prescribed by a doctor, the drug can be life-saving. But for non-diabetics, using the drug can have side effects that can cause major health problems and are worth avoiding altogether.
“There are side effects with any drug, but with Ozempic they could be: gastrointestinal issues, headaches, dizziness, and fatigue,” said Prato-Lefkowitz. “Because this drug can slow down digestion, it may interfere with the absorption of other drugs.”
The drug is also known to cause pancreatitis, blurred vision, low blood sugar, and kidney failure.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the government have not issued any information or guidance to healthcare providers on how to prioritize medications for diabetics, but the maker of Ozempic has indicated the shortage will last through December 2022. While the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists and independent information website Drugs.com are also reporting shortages of Ozempic in the US due to increased demand.
There has always been a market for weight loss solutions, but as social media continues to thrive and celebrities continue to hide the multitude of procedures and resources they use to achieve their looks, more and more young people will seek out dangerous options .
“So often society wants to say that diabetics are lazy and joking,” Mercer said. “But I think you’d be surprised at how many people want to take care of their bodies and just don’t have the tools or resources. Or they do it and still get convicted. So when you have someone who wants to take care of themselves – and they are – and suddenly something like Ozempic deficiency occurs, that’s a big problem.”
Before you go, check out our favorite quotes to inspire a positive attitude towards food and body image:
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