The Dark Side of Ozempic

Why I'm saying 'no' to the slimming miracle drugs as an eating disorder survivor.

Despite the fact that everyone and their mother (quite literally) has been talking about Ozempic over the past few years, I haven’t paid much attention to it. That is until I came across an interview on Jay Shetty’s ‘On Purpose Podcast’ with Johann Hari, author of Stolen Focus, in which he discusses his own experience and deep concerns about Ozempic and similar weight-loss drugs as part of the promotion around his new book: Magic Pill: The Extraordinary Benefits and Disturbing Risks of the New Weight Loss Drugs. According to Hari, Ozempic and similar drugs could spark a new opioid crisis — one that would primarily affect eating disorder sufferers — when it is adopted en masse. Sounds pretty scary, indeed; but, is his fear well-founded? As someone who has had an eating disorder, I feel I can weigh in.

To give you some context, before the pandemic hit Britain, from where I write, it saw the highest rate of eating disorders, and that rate has continued to rise since then. According to data released to the BBC by NHS Digital, the number of under-20s admitted to hospital for an eating disorder topped 3,200 in 2021, nearly 50% higher than in 2019-20. It is rising so quickly that the NHS is warning that they are running out of beds to care for these patients, let alone other resources. A similar picture is painted across the Atlantic, where the American Society for Nutrition reported that 24 million Americans suffered from eating disorders in 2021, while a 2023 article in NBC News warned that eating disorders among teens have become rampant. Faced with these statistics, alarm bells should be ringing, especially when we know that eating disorders overwhelmingly (though not solely) affect young girls and that they represent the deadliest mental illness, second only to opioid addiction.

The pandemic played a big role in this sharp rise in cases. As Claire Mysko, the Chief Executive Officer of the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA), told the American Society for Nutrition: ‘Eating disorders thrive in isolation’. In The Myth of Normal, Gabor Maté outlines the patterns linked to Anorexia Nervosa, describing these ‘deeply wounded individuals’ as ‘the bearers of every mental-emotional burden [he] has touched on’. As psychologist Jule T. Anné, who he interviewed for the book, says:

‘In a relational world… the human psyche devises a brilliant means to emotionally survive […]. In our culture, this becomes the pursuit of perfection vis-à-vis the body and self. Also known as anorexia.’ (The Myth of Normal)

I could not identify with this more. The link between loneliness and eating disorders is strong, which is probably why they are increasing at a fast rate. According to the Office for National Statistics, over a quarter (27%) of adults surveyed between December 2023 and January 2024 reported they felt lonely always, often or some of the time, with loneliness appearing to be more common among younger people and women. These groups are exactly the ones most susceptible to eating disorders — as I was just over a decade ago.