If the constant buzz around GLP-1s and intentional weight-loss has stirred up difficult feelings about body image, eating, or weight, you’re not alone. The nonstop promotion can create overwhelm and pressure to cave to social pressure — especially for people with ED and weight stigma histories.
One word keeps resurfacing again and again as I listen to people talk about the negative mental health impacts of the GLP-1 weight-loss hype:
Classic gaslighting involves minimizing risks, exaggerating benefits, and casting doubt on anyone who resists or even asks questions. It’s demanding that people accept a story that feels deeply untrue to their lived experience and knowledge. This is the landscape we’re in right now.
Here’s a detailed breakdown of why the GLP-1 weight-loss frenzy might feel gaslighting or otherwise harmful to your mental health:
Marketing is being packaged as information.
The pharmaceutical industry’s marketing is being packaged as objective health reporting. News articles, sponsored “explainers,” repetitive usage of phrases like “obesity is a disease,” and even some medical messaging blur the line between information and advertising. People feel like they’re being educated and given data, when in fact they’re being sold to.
GLP-1 marketing frames weight stigma as a serious problem, meanwhile the drugs themselves are reinforcing it.
We’re seeing an increase in humanizing, compassionate portrayals of people in larger bodies in GLP-1 weight-loss advertising, meanwhile just the presence of GLP-1s is reinforcing the idea that fat bodies are something that need to be fixed, i.e., weight stigma.
The sudden 180 into pro-GLP-1 hype makes us wonder if body positivity was ever real—or if everyone who pushed it was just lying.
For people who spent the last few years building self-acceptance or rejecting diet culture (possibly for the first time in their lives), the wall-to-wall messaging that “finally, there’s a way to get rid of your body” feels like the ground shifting under them. Like the culture is saying, “Your resistance was a delusion. Body positivity was a lie we were all just pretending was true. Thinness was the real goal all along.” This can make someone question whether they can trust other people and/or their instincts.
