{"id":583463,"date":"2026-04-03T19:34:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T19:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/583463\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T19:34:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T19:34:11","slug":"the-ozempic-age-means-super-skinny-is-back-in-style-but-did-it-ever-really-go-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/583463\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ozempic age means super skinny is back in style \u2013 but did it ever really go out?"},"content":{"rendered":"

New Zealand novelist Megan Nicol Reed examines the timeless pressure on women to be thin. <\/p>\n

You\u2019re looking amazing, I said to my friend. Thanks, she said. I meant it, she was, is, looking great, but I know when I\u2019ve lost weight and people have exclaimed over my appearance that it can kind of just make you feel like you must have looked really bad before. Anyway she seemed pleased enough and told me she\u2019s on Ozempic \u2013 known in medical circles as a GLP-1, or, in what\u2019s surely a euonym if ever there was one, a \u201cdual-agonist therapy\u201d.<\/p>\n

Wow, I said, because although supposedly everyone\u2019s on it, I didn\u2019t think I actually knew anyone who is or at least anyone who\u2019s admitting to it. I guess it\u2019s like how when Tinder first became a thing no one used to own up to having met their partner online for fear of being judged. The implication being that you\u2019d cut corners, thus rendering the relationship somehow less authentic, less admirable. <\/p>\n

Then my friend told me that while she\u2019d shed kilos and kilos on the drug, and that for the first time in her life the food noise that usually filled her head with its pleas and threats, its endless chatter, had gone quiet, she\u2019d decided to go off it. Oh, I said, and though I was trying very hard to keep my face neutral, as if I didn\u2019t have an opinion either way, she obviously felt she needed to justify her decision. I feel sick on it, she said. And I\u2019m sick of feeling sick. Sick of feeling exhausted. Sick of feeling flat. <\/p>\n

Ozempic: ‘Like trying to read a book on a long, windy car ride’<\/p>\n

A few days later I was watching the Oscars and I was struck by how instead of the usual gushing (Angelina Jolie in Versace, 2012: \u201cone leg changed the internet\u201d), the sniping (Anne Hathaway in Prada, 2013: \u201cawkward bust silhouette\u201d), much of the red-carpet coverage was focussed on the size of the stars. How everyone from Nicole Kidman with her teeny-tiny insect arms to Melissa McCarthy with her snatched middle looked noticeably smaller. Smaller, and I thought, recalling my friend\u2019s analogy of having spent the entire four months she\u2019d been on Ozempic as like trying to read a book on a long and windy car drive, miserable. It\u2019s called the \u201cGLP-1 face\u201d: rapid weight loss equals sunken-in cheeks equals unhappy resting face.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The term ‘Ozempic face’ refers to an undesired loss of fat in the face as a side effect of a slimmer body. (Source: istock.com)<\/p>\n

You can forget the body positivity of the past decade, apparently rail thin is back. Did it ever truly go away though. As a small child I can remember being aware of these crazy diets my mother and grandmother would be on, one week only eating cabbage soup, the next grapefruit. In my teens I gleaned tips from Dolly and Cleo magazines on how to \u201cDrop a dress-size in two weeks!\u201d. If you\u2019re not naturally thin, getting thin and staying thin is hard work. Drop your guard for a week or two and those fought-for jutty-out bones will disappear back beneath a waiting fold of flesh. And now there\u2019s this so-called \u201cmiracle\u201d skinny drug, but the price to pay is feeling like crap.<\/p>\n

\"Fad<\/p>\n

Fad diets were a big part of 1980s culture. (Source: Sunday)<\/p>\n

From a surprisingly tender age girls learn to be hypercritical of their physical selves. And while, we may pretend otherwise, I would argue so we are of other\u2019s, silently (and sometimes not so silently, thank you, social media) critiquing food choices, portion sizes, the appropriateness of an outfit on a particular figure. It\u2019s little wonder so many women of my generation have such complicated relationships with food. Most of us have spent our whole lives judging and being judged, punishing and depriving ourselves, beating ourselves up. <\/p>\n

\"New<\/p>\n

New Zealand author Megan Nicol Reed released a new novel this week. (Photo: Babiche Martens) <\/p>\n

In both my novels, One of Those Mothers, and the about-to-be-released, Other People\u2019s Bodies I use a character\u2019s eating habits as a way of exploring their psyche, as illustration and explanation of their inner worlds. Partly because with all its implicit self-denial, control and obsessiveness, disordered eating is tantalisingly fertile ground for a writer, but also because I like to write about women and I\u2019m not sure it\u2019s possible to do so without addressing their feelings about their bodies and how they fuel them. <\/p>\n

\"It's<\/p>\n

It’s hard to write about women’s inner world’s without writing about their relationship with food. (Source: istock.com)<\/p>\n

On a recent weekend away with six of my oldest and dearest girlfriends we swam, we ate, we drank, we discussed books, natural highs versus chemical and how we felt genuinely stumped who to vote for this election. And, like every other girls\u2019 weekend I\u2019ve ever been on, we talked about our bodies, comparing who eats what when, sharing fasting tips and exercise hacks. As a result, several were inspired to download Simple, an app which helps you track your way to better health, read: weight loss. Emotional support is provided by this fuzzy little guy called Blinky, a kind of Tamagotchi. At first it seemed like fun. They were logging the lettuce cups and lying about the three margaritas and everyone was happy, Blinky included. But as with any diet, after a week or two the novelty wore off and Blinky soon got forgotten. But Blinky didn\u2019t go gently. Like some passive-aggressive friend or asshole of an ex-, Blinky started sending manipulative messages. (\u201cHope you and your unlogged snacks are happy without me.\u201d) We laughed bitchily on our WhatsApp group chat when Blinky got resoundingly dumped. In women\u2019s ongoing war with their bodies, it felt like an all too precious win.<\/p>\n

Megan Nicol Reed’s latest novel Other People’s Bodies (published by Allen & Unwin NZ) is available now. <\/p>\n

*The celebrities named in this story are not given as examples of GLP-1 medication use, but as a more general trend of weight loss. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Zealand novelist Megan Nicol Reed examines the timeless pressure on women to be thin. You\u2019re looking amazing,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":583464,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[64,63,137,490,1721,509,7594],"class_list":{"0":"post-583463","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-medication","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-medication","12":"tag-opinion","13":"tag-social-issues","14":"tag-wellbeing"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=583463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583463\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/583464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}