Could a ‘miracle’ weight loss drug spell the end of the body positivity movement?

JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:

There is a lot of noise, especially for women, about what it means to have a healthy body: how you get it and how you keep it. Don’t eat carbs, don’t eat fat, eat protein, run, do yoga, lift weights. But at the end of the day, having a healthy body has been synonymous with one thing: being thin. However, in recent years, this idea has been challenged by body positivity activists who have preached a message of health at any size. And now, with the arrival of a new class of weight loss drugs, often referred to as miracle drugs, is the body positivity movement at risk of fading? It’s a question New York magazine contributing writer Samhita Mukhopadhyay grapples with in her recent article, “So Body Positivity Was a Big Lie?” He joins me now to discuss his article. Welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.

SAMHITA MUKHOPADHYAY: It’s great to be here.

SUMMERS: So I want to start off by talking about this idea that being healthy and being thin is the same thing, which is one of the main things you get into in this article. Let’s start here. How do you see it?

MUKHOPADHYAY: The conventional wisdom has long been that, you know, no matter what your health problem is, if you go to the doctor, the doctor will tell you to lose weight, right?

SUMMERS: Yes.

MUKHOPADHYAY: Like, irrelevant, you know, what your blood test might be like or what your mobility issues are like or what your fitness level is like. And in the last couple of years, starting with body positive activists, but also, you know, there’s been some research on this in medical science, they’re seeing that the relationship between your body size and your health It’s not as linear as we’ve thought for a long time, right? And so your fitness level is really important. Your proportions matter. Your blood test is important.

And I think one of the things that, you know, we’re really struggling with right now is that we’re still a culture that loves thinness, right? And so it’s very difficult to separate that from health. We have so internalized this idea that if you are fat, you are not healthy, and if you are thin, you are healthy.

SUMMERS: I mean, as you’re talking, I’m sitting here thinking about so many interactions I’ve had with health professionals over the years where you come in with an illness and it’s like, well, how many calories are you burning? Or are you active enough? Or what is your usual lunch or dinner routine like? And it can be so frustrating. How do you think we’ve gotten to a point culturally where these two things are so intertwined in what I think many would argue could be a problematic way?

MUKHOPADHYAY: You know, we have a culture that worships thinness, right? And so, you know, Hollywood reinforces that. The media reinforces it. And it really has always been thin at all costs, hasn’t it? Like, we’ve never criticized what people have to do to lose weight or how healthy that can be, whether it’s healthy physically or healthy from a mental perspective, from a psychological perspective, right?

But I do think that, you know, so much of this media reinforcement of a kind of, you know, what’s considered the ideal body size really merged with also this idea of ​​taking, you know, our weight and our health , let’s be honest. , there are personal factors that lead to our health outcomes. But a lot of them are systemic, right? – like access to healthy food, having grocery stores in your…

SUMMERS: Yes.

MUKHOPADHYAY: …The neighborhood, living in an environment where you feel comfortable taking a walk, right? – like, all these things that are really systemic problems that affect health outcomes. I think it’s so much this internal process of, you know, we judge ourselves if we get a little fat, you know, where, oh, I’m like, losing control. I’m not eating well. I have to do this, you know?

And that could be true too, right? Like, we know when we’re not being our best and not taking care of ourselves. But the way the systems, both in our society and in our culture and in the medical system, continue to reinforce that, I think it’s made it very difficult to disentangle those two things.

SUMMERS: You have written in this article and others about your decision to go to Mounjaro. You’ve described it as a choice you’ve struggled with. And now you haven’t taken this medicine for months. I’m curious, what do you personally think? How has this experience, if at all, changed the way you feel about your body?

MUKHOPADHYAY: Yes. It has been very hard. You know, medication does a lot of different things. You know, you don’t feel like eating that much, do you? Like, your relationship with food really changes. So fried food is very difficult to digest. If you eat too many sweets, you get very sick. And so certain things happened while I was doing it where my body would have a really overreact to something that I would normally have eaten and I would have been like, oh my god, I’m being so mean. And it was like, no, you’re being really mean, girl. Like, stop eating that (laughs), you know?

And that forced me to eat fresher foods and more vegetables and more fruit. And I was craving, like, I always wanted something crunchy. So, like, I wanted crisp salads and stuff like that. And that had an impact on my behavior, even coming off the medication. And without it, I can tell how I feel when I eat well or decide to indulge, which I do. i am human I love food…

SUMMERS: Same.

MUKHOPADHYAY: … you know? You know, and I’m a child of immigrants. We have delicious food. Like, you know, I eat rice, like, all that stuff, but I’m really figuring out how to balance it. And what my doctor had originally said about increased mobility was true.

I had gotten to a point where, for me and my body, my body size was affecting my mobility in very subtle ways, but they were painful. And as I got older, I had pain in my knee and ankle. And as I started moving more, I mean, really, all I did was start walking. Like, I started doing these five to seven mile walks and hikes. And this mobility really changed my vision. It changed my mental health. It changed my body.

And so, even though I’m gaining some of the weight back, I’ve been… I’ve managed to maintain some of the lifestyle changes. And I think that’s, like, a really key piece of this that we don’t talk about as much, which is, you know, how can it really be used strategically to support people who want to take better care of themselves?

SUMMERS: You’ve been open about it. You have written several times about your experience at Mounjaro and since then. How was this experience for you?

MUKHOPADHYAY: It was very hard (laughs). It took me, like, two months to write this piece. And I think part of it is that it’s very difficult to paint within the lines that have been drawn for us in this conversation, right? Or do you fully support it. You want to take it. It is a major medical intervention. We should all want to be thin, right? This is the dominant narrative.

But then the counter narrative is also that we, like, accept our bodies the way we are. And as I write in the piece, a lot of pressure, you know, within the community to say that, like, any movement toward weight loss is perpetuating, you know, this idea that thinness is the ultimate ideal. And so, you know, part of what I wanted: I was like, this is messed up. I don’t even have all the answers. But I just know that the way I’m navigating this as someone who’s a feminist, someone who’s committed to body positivity, but also someone who was dealing with serious health issues that I wanted to address and move forward with, I could not be alone in this experience.

And so, yes, it has been a challenge. But it’s been overwhelmingly positive in terms of the exposure I’ve gotten and how many people have shared their personal stories. I mean, my direct messages are paragraphs and paragraphs of, like, heartbreaking, you know, unearthed stories of people going to the doctor, the experiences they’ve had or, you know, mobility issues or so many different experiences that people has. it had. Or even celebrities have reached out to me and said, you know, I was feeling really judgmental about these drugs and, like, that really helped me understand, you know, how I should be really thinking about it. . So it’s been good.

SUMMERS: Samhita Mukhopadhyay is a contributing writer for New York Magazine. Her latest article in The Cut is “So Was Body Positivity All A Big Lie?” Thank you so much.

MUKHOPADHYAY: Thank you very much.

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