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What Now? With Trevor NoahThe Ozempic Obsession with Jia Tolentino | What Now? with Trevor Noah Podcast
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Chapter summaries
Pro-Choice on Ozempic: Opening Positions
Trevor Noah and Christina set up the conversation, using Ozempic as shorthand for the whole class of weight loss drugs. Christina says she is pro-choice but against the societal pressure to take them, and Noah notes the name has become something like an insult.
- •Ozempic is used as a stand-in for Mounjaro, Zepbound, Wegovy and similar drugs
- •Christina is pro-choice but opposes the pressure people feel to take them
- •She has seen friends and family helped with comfort, joint problems and appetite
- •Noah observes that accusing someone of being on Ozempic has become a kind of slur
- •Christina relays the rumor that Trump is on it, and Jia Tolentino joins as the guest
Thinness, Morality and the Idea of Cheating
Jia Tolentino argues that beauty is coded as morality from childhood, so people who use Ozempic are accused of skipping the hard work. Noah contrasts this with South Africa, where fatness signaled being well provided for, and Jia says both views track wealth.
- •Beauty and thinness are taught as moral virtue from early childhood
- •A Protestant work ethic makes using Ozempic look like cheating
- •In South Africa, thinness was read as lack and fatness as a sign of doing well
- •Jia says the valued body type always correlates with wealth
- •Art history shows fuller figures valued when they signaled plenty
Weight Loss Drugs for Children and Structural Causes
Christina raises the approval of these drugs for children, and Noah objects. Jia argues that child health is shaped by housing, food policy and unsafe outdoor space, and Noah says America treats symptoms rather than causes.
- •Christina notes the drugs were recently approved for children
- •Noah doubts they should be given to children unless weight is truly detrimental to health
- •Christina describes parents pressuring preteen and teen daughters to lose weight
- •Jia points to housing, food stamps, recess funding and food deserts
- •Noah and Jia say America is good at profiting from treating symptoms
Body Ideals in Nigeria and Fattening Rooms
Noah asks what weight was like in Nigeria, and Christina describes an idealized body that is hard to attain and the body diversity across West Africa. She describes the fattening room, where some women are fed carbohydrates and meat before marriage.
- •The Nigerian ideal of big hips, small waist and big bust is hard to get naturally
- •Christina's grandmother worried about who would marry her because she was so thin
- •West Africa has wide body diversity, including muscular and tall women
- •Some tribes have a fattening room before marriage
- •Christina notes the girls often did not want to be fattened or married
Jia's Reporting and the Swing Back from Body Positivity
Jia explains why she began tracking Ozempic: the Kardashians and Hollywood bodies changing visibly. She had thought the culture was moving toward body openness, and the drugs signaled a sharp swing back.
- •Jia saw celebrity bodies visibly changing before anyone had heard of the drug
- •She grew up in conservative Houston in the era of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears
- •The Obama-era opening to body diversity seemed to promise a change
- •Ozempic marked a swing back toward diet culture
Beauty vs. Health and a Moral Way to Talk About Weight
Noah asks whether the conversation is really about beauty disguised as health. Christina points to salaries tied to weight, and Jia says fat people are best at discussing weight, criticizes BMI and doctor bias, and suggests setting weight aside for other health metrics.
- •Christina cites a report that women's pay tracks weight while men face no penalty
- •People collapse morality, beauty and health into one thing
- •Jia says fat advocates have built the best vocabulary for this topic
- •She criticizes BMI and describes doctors under-diagnosing larger patients
- •The healthiest approach is to talk about metrics other than weight, such as VO2 max
How GLP-1 Drugs Work and What They Reveal About Compulsion
Noah explains the discovery of GLP-1 and how the drugs moved from diabetes to weight loss. He and Christina note users report less drinking, gambling, scrolling and shopping, and Jia says appetite is part of being human.
- •GLP-1 is a hormone that signals fullness, and the drugs were first meant for diabetes
- •Users report reduced drinking, gambling, social media use and compulsive shopping
- •Noah suggests the drugs expose how self-control has been undermined
- •Jia says fear of fat leads children to fear their appetites
- •Christina argues food is one of the few cheap pleasures in America
Corporations, Individual Blame and Willpower
Noah compares blaming individuals for eating to oil companies making recycling our job. The group agrees these problems are not simply about willpower and that the system profits from both the problem and the cure.
- •Corporations push their problems onto individuals, as with recycling
- •People are made to feel guilty about appetites rather than asking who creates the addiction
- •Noah likens this to playing Whac-A-Mole
- •Christina says it was never just willpower
- •Jia says to follow the money made from both the problem and the cure
Class Divides and the Pressure to Conform
Noah asks whether the drugs let the wealthy escape another ill. Christina says the rich can escape fatphobia, while Jia fears that unaltered bodies will come to seem deviant, and fat, healthy people will be asked why they don't just get the jab.
- •Money may let some people avoid the cruelty of fatphobia
- •Jia describes an arms race between digital enhancement and technological alteration
- •She fears that an unaltered body or face becomes seen as deviant
- •Fat, healthy people now face the question of why they don't just conform
- •Noah compares this to cyberpunk worlds where people without enhancements are judged
Celebrity Weight Changes, Body Positivity and Body Neutrality
Noah asks about backlash when celebrities who embraced their bodies later lose weight, citing Adele and Jennifer Hudson. Christina and Jia discuss representation, corporatized body positivity, body neutrality and Tressie McMillan Cottom's idea of structural ugliness.
- •Fans can feel resentment when a body-positive celebrity changes
- •Christina says there was comfort in seeing a thriving fat woman
- •Jia saw corporate body positivity as a market opportunity and prefers body neutrality
- •Everyone is worthy, but that may have nothing to do with beauty
- •Christina cites Tressie McMillan Cottom on structural ugliness
Functional Health Over Weight: The LeBron Example
Noah uses LeBron James losing weight for his knees to argue for good-faith conversations about health. Christina notes how hard it is for women to separate health from looking acceptable, and Jia reframes the question as whether you can do what you want in your body and feel good.
- •Noah says LeBron lost weight for performance and knee health
- •Resistance training matters for staying functional as you age
- •Christina says women find it hard to disconnect health from approval of their bodies
- •Jia suggests asking whether you can do the things you want to do and whether you feel good
- •Noah gives examples such as lifting luggage, a child or a couch
Visible Fatness, Judgment and Rising Weight Bias
Noah notes that fatness is visible in a way gambling or drinking problems are not, so people feel free to judge. Christina describes the cruelty and condescension fat people face, and Jia cites a Harvard study in which bias against weight rose while other biases fell.
- •Fatness is one of the few things others can see and assume things about
- •Strangers express judgments and give prescriptive comments to fat people
- •Christina describes a woman on a run who was patronizingly praised
- •Jia cites a Harvard implicit bias study in which weight bias rose while nine other measures fell
What Now: Long-Term Unknowns, Possible Shutdown and Politics
Noah asks Jia what she expects and hopes for. Jia hopes the drugs strip moral judgment from weight, but notes that weight returns when people stop taking them. Noah predicts the government could shut the drugs down, and Christina ties the thinness obsession to a rightward cultural shift.
- •Jia hopes the drugs show weight is more arbitrary and morally neutral than assumed
- •Weight loss generally lasts only as long as the drugs are taken
- •Noah says the very long-term effects are unknown
- •Noah predicts corporations might lobby to shut effective drugs down
- •Christina links the thinness ideal to anti-woke politics and expects it to last until that shifts
