I’m a Tween Girl Mom and Ozempic Is Bringing Back My ‘90s Trauma

When I was in my tween and teen years, heroin chic was not only cool, it was almost unremarkable. If you, too, were a child of the 90s, I’m sure you can remember the Calvin Klein ad campaign featuring a naked Kate Moss with a body so waifish that you could see all her ribs through her back. Then there was watching Mary Kate and Ashely Olsen as they graduated from their adorable Full House days and became poster children for the new beauty and fashion ideal: an emaciated frame swimming in bohemian clothing. By the time I reached high school, many of the “popular” girls were giving bulimia a try or casually talking about calorie restriction…you know, because nothing tastes as good as thin. 

It was in this climate that I, too, developed an eating disorder for several years—and I’m not blaming the media for it. (I had other things going on in my life that made such dysfunctional habits seem like an appealing coping mechanism.) Still, I wonder: Would I have gone down that road had the dominant message coming from pop culture not been that there’s no such thing as too skinny?  

The worst part is that once you have the standard ingrained in your impressionable mind as a tween and teen, it’s really hard to shed. I have been eating disorder-free for 15 years, but my chest still tightens a little bit when I put on a pair of jeans fresh from the dryer and they feel tighter than the last time I wore them. It’s taken a lot of work to accept my body for what it is. Healthy. And as the mother of a 10-year-old girl who’s beautiful and perfect in every way, the last thing I would ever want is for her to grapple with body image issues like I did.

For this reason, I found it really heartening to see that things had started to change for the better in the early to mid aughts. The term body positivity entered the zeitgeist and became a veritable social movement; clothing lines started emphasizing inclusivity in their sizing and advertising; and beautiful, empowered young women with healthy figures were celebrated on the red carpet and runway (Jennifer Hudson and Ashley Graham come to mind). It’s like society figured out that there’s nothing all that attractive about looking like you’re surviving a Soviet era famine in designer clothing. 

I’m starting to feel nervous again, though, because I’m sensing a gradual cultural shift away from body positivity and back towards the skinny craze of the 90s. And I can’t help but think that the tremendous buzz around Ozempic, which is supposedly the best thing in health and beauty since sliced bread—you know, that carb-loaded food of the devil that won’t tempt you if you take the stuff—is evidence.

Don’t get me wrong—I have nothing against adults, or even kids, taking Ozempic when a credible doctor determines it’s in the interest of their health. And, anyway, this isn’t really a story about Ozempic at all, though I admit I have found the whole trend slightly triggering. 

Fortunately, the drug’s emergence has had no impact on my tween’s body image thus far. Frankly, I don’t even think she knows what it is. It’s just that I see a future in which more influential celebrities join the race to shed as many pounds as quickly as possible, and that means fewer images of normal looking bodies out there.  

Indeed, the messaging is insidious, perhaps even moreso now in the age of social media influencers. One look at People Magazine or Page Six will tell you that Ozempic is the talk of the town in Hollywood and great fodder for those who love celebrity gossip, and #ozempic and #ozempicweightloss have 600 million and half a billion views, respectively, on TikTok—a social media platform that tweens and teens practically live and breathe. Honestly, the only reason it’s not on my daughter’s radar yet is because I don’t let her use TikTok or Instagram.

Maybe I’m just overreacting, and even if I’m not, I only have one solution for it anyway. If, like me, you’re a girl-mom who desperately wants to protect her daughter from media trends that could harm her self-esteem and cause body image issues, I say the onus is on us to be the loudest voices in the room. Louder than the pop stars, reality TV personalities and influencers, and with one simple message to convey: healthy is beautiful.