Is Ozempic Harm Reduction?

What the bankruptcy of Weight Watchers says about the death of diet culture

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Content warning for fatphobia, diet culture, disordered eating, and dieting practices.

When The Wall Street Journal reported last week that WW (formerly Weight Watchers) was preparing to file for bankruptcy, it didn’t exactly come as a shock. Ever since their attempts to pivot to providing telehealth appointments for GLP-1 prescriptions, it’s been pretty clear that their business was in grave trouble. Their former CEO’s Sima Sistani’s participation in the Oprah specials on Ozempic smacked of desperation: I read her non-apology (and then belated apology) to all of the people who they’d falsely told they could lose weight and keep it off on their plan as a cynical attempt to stay relevant. And, ultimately, a futile one. Sistani stepped down from the company late last year, after less than three years in the role, for undisclosed reasons. But one can guess that the glass cliff on the horizon was part of the decision.

Image credit: USA Today

It isn’t, of course, that thinness is no longer a goal. Thin is more in than ever now, as I’ve discussed recently. The means to pursuing it have shifted radically, however: with GLP-1s like Ozempic and Wegovy (semaglutides) and Zepbound and Mounjaro (tirzepatides) having well and truly cornered the weight loss market. They promise greater weight loss than diet and exercise—to the tune of ten to twenty percent of someone’s starting weight, on average—with less of the misery of traditional dieting. And although these medications have serious side effects for a few, and unpleasant gastro-intestinal effects for most patients, I have begun to have a rogue thought for someone as invested as I am in body liberation: could Ozempic be an unlikely form of harm reduction for many people?