Is GLP-1 Marketing Attacking Our Mental Health?
GLP-1 marketers are flooding our feeds. What's the mental health cost to those of us in recovery from eating disorders and internalized weight stigma?
Recently I was driving around San Francisco. It was a beautiful day (for SF), I was feeling at peace with myself and my body, and all of a sudden I look over and there’s a bus plastered with an ad for a new GLP-1 that reads:
“Lose weight even faster!
Less nausea!
Try us now!”
“Lose weight faster?” This phrase is dangerous. There are teens and kids and people with eating disorders who can read this. Where are the ethics? Why is everyone acting like this is about health? “Less nausea?” Since when did that become an actual value proposition?
Some might people might use the word “aggressive” to describe the marketing tactics used to sell GLP-1s. I, however, would use a different word: dangerous.
For some, the ubiquity of GLP-1 marketing might be pesky. For others — like me, who are in recovery from body image disturbances, high levels of internalized weight stigma, and an eating disorder — however, the marketing tactics being used to sell GLP-1s pose a threat to our mental health and recovery.
The past year-and-a-half has felt like witnessing a feeding frenzy, with profits being put above the vulnerable populations who have worked very hard to escape the messaging that weight-loss is a desirable, health-promoting and positive outcome for everyone.
People are eager to defend the rights of people to take GLP-1s, but what about the rights of people in recovery who don’t want to take them and don’t want GLP-1s incessantly marketed to them?
I’ve frequently used the phrase “below the belt” to describe the marketing tactics deployed by companies marketing GLP-1s.
One such tactic was reported on by The Washington Post in 2024. A number of body positive influencers and fat-positive content creators, including myself, were targeted by companies selling or marketing GLP-1s. These companies approached us with either offers of free GLP-1s or payment for taking GLP-1s. The deals were contingent upon our willingness to share our “health journey” with our (collectively, millions of) followers. I wasn’t just approached once or twice. I was approached more than a dozen times - more frequently than any other company has approached me for anything. And most companies that approach me are actively aligned with my stated commitment to body positivity and weight neutrality.
Let’s dive deeper into the targeting of content creators to highlight 3 immoral and dangerous (from a mental health perspective) marketing maneuvers that have been used to sell GLP-1s:
gaslighting and shaming
the erosion of confidence and trust
and the violation of implied consent and boundaries
Gaslighting & shaming
Though there are millions of people - the majority, in fact - who actively want to undertake weight-loss, there is a group of us who find that practice harmful for our mental and/or physical health. A lot of us turn to social media to find a safe haven from a fatphobic culture that tells us daily that we need to change our bodies. For many of us, fat-positive and body positive accounts have been pathways to healing body image disturbances, low self-worth, internalized fatphobia and/or disordered eating. We go to these accounts for joy, relief, confidence and mental health support. We go to these accounts to feel like we’re not alone. This is one of the very first spaces that was targeted.
Gaslighting is when someone does things that manipulate another person into questioning their reality. For example, companies spend so much money on targeted advertising for GLP-1s - using keywords like “health” and “disease” - that it feels like everyone must be taking GLP-1s and you must not care about your health if you don’t too. If you have experienced significant weight stigma, you’re familiar with health-shaming, fear mongering and the pressure to lose weight by any means necessary.
Now, let’s look at an example from The Washington Post piece: a content creator has been saying for years that all bodies are good bodies and weight is not a stand-in for health, and then all of a sudden they start saying or implying that those things aren’t true. Now, let’s say not just one, but several content creators do this at the same time. Imagine how this might impact the mental health of the people who have been following them, trusting them, gaining confidence, and maybe healing their relationship to their body and food through their content. Ok, are you imagining how devastating and confusing that must be for at least some of those creators’ followers? Well, that confusion and devastation (gaslighting) are the goal of this type of marketing.
Erosion of confidence and trust
Fat activism, body positivity and body neutrality are major threats to the influence of the diet industry and diet culture. GLP-1 marketers could have completely left us alone, and targeted only people who actively desire weight-loss products and services, i.e., the majority of the United States. That’s not what they did, however. They targeted representatives of these communities in order to erode the confidence and trust (and morale) that’s been built. This is yet another example of predatory marketing.
Violation of implied consent and boundaries
When someone opts into following a body positive or fat-positive content creator, they are communicating a message: “I want to see content that shows body diversity as a positive thing and/or makes me feel like my body is OK as it is.” Within that message there can be an implied boundary: “I am opting out of content that shows that only thin bodies are positive and/or makes me feel like my body is not OK as it is.” When I was offered GLP-1s in exchange for sharing my “journey,” I immediately understood that these marketers did not care at all about the implied boundaries and/or consent of my followers.
Similarly, I just got an email today where someone shared:
“I have a Hulu account with ads. I’ve watched lots of shows on there and the ONLY times I’ve seen an ad for (GLP-1s) were during different two fat positive shows: My Mad Fat Diary and How to Die Alone.”
What to do
Notice how these ads are affecting you, and take the time to tend to your mental health through things like journaling, venting to a friend who gets it, taking a break, or talking about it with a mental health professional.
Post about it on social media, sharing your story and the message of how this kind of advertising negatively impacts many people in recovery from eating disorders and weight stigma.
Report or thumbs-down this type of advertising, if that option is available.
Call or email public transportation agencies or places that house this type of advertising and leave a complaint. If you post about it on social media, tag them.
Gaslighting, the erosion of confidence and trust, and the violation of consent and boundaries — this is a recipe for assaulting someone’s mental health, plain and simple. It is absolutely not OK when anyone does any of these things.
Regardless of our recovery status, we all deserve better than this.
It’s not an accident that we’re being targeted, and that cultural fatphobia is yet again being used to shame and silence us in the name of health.
I am sad to say that there are no laws in place to stop the marketers of GLP-1s from doing this (even though there should be), but I wrote this in hopes that reading this might give language to feelings you’re having and maybe restore a little bit of the mental health that some of these goons have attempted to steal from us. Even though the GLP-1 voice is really loud right now, just know that there will continue to be people who are holding it down for a world free from weight stigma and the undue influence of diet culture.
xo,
