For half a century, psychotherapist and social critic Susie Orbach has observed the relentless pressure on women to conform to narrow physical ideals. Now, she warns, a new wave of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs is offering a medicalised solution to body anxiety while doing nothing to heal our troubled relationships with food and self-image.
The False Promise of a Pharmaceutical Fix
Orbach acknowledges the understandable appeal of drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. They provide a form of psychological peace for those plagued by obsessive thoughts about food and appetite. With prices falling and online prescriptions readily available, their use is soaring. This trend is set to accelerate with the anticipated arrival of a pill version, moving beyond the current injectable form.
However, she argues this pharmaceutical intervention merely masks the underlying issue. The promise of these drugs is to quell the internal chatter about eating and transform bodies into a socially acceptable, slim ideal. This, Orbach states, reduces body autonomy to a commodity—something to be purchased from a pharmaceutical company.
Industries Profiting from Distress
The core problem, according to Orbach, remains unaddressed. The beauty, food, and fashion industries that actively provoke body distress and troubled eating continue their practices unchecked. The food industry, in particular, is criticised for its ethics of greed, peddling ultra-processed foods designed to overstimulate appetite.
Ironically, this same industry is now adapting to the GLP-1 boom. Food scientists are creating GLP-1 friendly products, reformulating foods to entice those with medically suppressed appetites, ensuring they don't lose market share. Meanwhile, the rapid weight loss from these drugs leads to the GLP-1 face—gaunt, aged features—spurring a new market for costly cosmetic interventions to re-plump skin.
The Cycle Begins Young and the Path Forward
Orbach highlights significant downsides often glossed over: muscle loss, the discrimination faced by those who cannot take the drugs, and studies showing most people regain the weight within two years of stopping treatment. The search for a reliable, sustainable body remains elusive.
The cycle of anxiety, she notes, starts early. Pressure on new parents to get back into pre-pregnancy clothes can make feeding both themselves and their infant a fraught experience. To truly help people, we need a whole-body approach that begins at the start of life, allowing babies and parents to relish hunger and its satisfaction without fear.
Orbach's vision is for a future where our experience of food is pleasurable, wholesome and unconflicted. Achieving this, she concludes, would truly contest the power of the industries that profit from our body anxieties—a goal far more worthwhile than any quick pharmaceutical fix.
