The Ozempic Obsession with Jia Tolentino | What Now? with Trevor Noah Podcast

Ozempic Culture: Morality, Beauty, Addiction, and Who Profits From Thinness

1. A.The hosts and Jia Tolentino say they are pro-choice on individual use of Ozempic-type drugs, while criticizing the social pressure to take them and the shaming that surrounds them.
2. B.Tolentino argues that beauty has long been coded as morality and wealth, so using a drug feels like cheating on a thinness ideal that society demanded, and she cites a Harvard study in which weight bias rose while other biases fell.
3. C.Noah and Christina note that the drugs seem to dampen other compulsions like drinking, gambling, and shopping, which they say suggests the problem is a society and corporations that engineer addiction rather than a lack of willpower.
4. D.The group debates health versus beauty, suggesting that better metrics are functional ones like whether you can do what you want in life and feel good in your body, rather than weight itself.
5. E.Looking ahead, Tolentino points out that weight is typically regained after stopping the drugs and that long-term effects are unknown, Noah speculates the government might shut the drugs down to protect addiction-driven industries, and Christina predicts thinness will stay in vogue during a conservative political era.