Ozempic and body positivity: Inside the ‘industry-wide strategy to use plus-size influencers to sell injectable weight-loss medication’

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Remi Bader. Credit: Remi Bader/Instagram/Motherly

When Virgie Tovar got an email asking her to promote injectable weight-loss medications on her social media, she thought it was spam.

As an activist, she had spent the last 13 years espousing body positivity and fat acceptance. Why would she promote drugs like Ozempic on her Instagram account?

But the offers to promote companies proffering drugs like Wegovy and Ozempic kept coming in.

And then she saw fellow fat activists posting screenshots of similar emails they had received. They came from a variety of marketing agencies and “med spas” (medical spas) with names like Valhalla Vitality, Toma Skin Therapies and The Hills Beauty Experience, promoting injectable drugs for weight loss.

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“That was when it started to register that this might be something that is very widespread — that’s strategic,” she said.

Tovar was right. The emails she received were part of an industry-wide strategy to market injectable weight-loss medication via plus-size influencers. Tovar and other activists have started spreading the word on social media and speaking to the press.

As profits explode from sales of its drugs Wegovy and Ozempic, Novo Nordisk has created marketing campaigns that address body-positive communities. WeightWatchers is hyping its new WeightWatchers Clinic, focused on injectable weight-loss drugs, via paid promotions with social media influencers.

This push from the weight-loss industry is creating ideological rifts in body-positivity communities.

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