The owners of Plus Bus Boutique, a consignment store in Los Angeles that buys and sells plus-size fashions, noticed something strange last summer.
“We’ve had an alarming amount of larger sizes come in,” says co-owner Marcy Guevara-Prete.
Jen Wilder, the other owner of Plus Bus, isn’t entirely surprised that customers have emptied their wardrobes.
“There’s been a lot of talk (among their clientele) about downsizing,” she says. And the reason, they both agree, is probably Ozempic. “Drugs are making a big impact,” says Guevara-Prete.
There has been similar news across the retail industry.
Poshmark, a second-hand fashion platform, announced in August that they would see a 103% increase in plus size clothing listings and a 78% increase in new items with the phrase “weight loss” included somewhere in the description.
Impact Analytics, a retail forecasting company, suggested that the 12% increase in sales for XXS, XS and S sizes and the 11% decrease in sales for XXL, XL and L sizes can only be explained by the “Ozempic phenomenon”.
Ozempic — or any of the GLP-1 class of diet drugs that includes Wegovy and Mounjaro — hasn’t just changed our nation’s waistline.
It has changed the foods we eat, the ways we party, exercise, travel, dress and talk about health and beauty.
In the last year alone, Ozempic has been a sponsor of the Paris Olympics, a sensation at July’s Berlin fashion week – a model took to the runway wearing an “I love Ozempic” T-shirt – and the reason why the giant chain Walmart claims that food sales have fallen. Injectable drugs are sending a message that ultra-dilution is back, a throwback to the “nothing tastes as good as skinny” era of the 1990s.
GLP-1 drugs have been around in some form since 2005, originally introduced as a type 2 diabetes drug.
But a July report from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center detailed that patients taking drugs like Ozempic for weight loss more than doubled between 2011 and 2023, while those taking the diabetes drug dropped by 10%.
Among young adults, GLP-1 prescriptions have increased almost 600% since 2020.
According to a 2024 Gallup poll, 6% of Americans, or 15.5 million people, have used or are using injectable drugs for weight loss.
We’ve come a long way since Jimmy Kimmel teased the audience at the 2023 Oscars with, “I can’t help but wonder, is Ozempic right for me?”
Over the past year, celebrities from Rebel Wilson and Tori Spelling to Kelly Clarkson and Tracy Morgan have publicly admitted to taking drugs to shed pounds.
Katy Perry, who denies using the drug, handed out mini-syringes labeled OzempiKP (as a joke) on her recent 40th birthday.
Even Oprah Winfrey has come out of Ozempic’s closet, claiming she’s “done with shame.”
The rise of Ozempic – a name that has become so ubiquitous, it is now to GLP-1 drugs what “Coke” is to soft drinks – has created its own language.
There is “Ozempicmaxxing”, when weight loss occurs at an alarming rate; “food noise,” the constant thoughts about food that Ozempic relieves; “Ozemic Burp”, the sulfur-smelling burp reported by many users including Elon Musk; and “Ozempic Face,” the sunken eyes and sagging cheeks that often come with sudden weight loss.
As Ozempic has become more normalized, it has changed the shape of the fashion industry. Size inclusion is on the decline, with only three of 65 fashion brands hiring at least one plus-size model this season, according to a Vogue Business report.
(That’s a drop of more than half since 2023.) Even those who remain have noticed a less accepting atmosphere.
Candice Huffine, a plus-size model for Victoria’s Secret and Lane Bryant, claims she was accidentally prescribed Ozempic by her doctor, despite not mentioning weight loss at all. “I was shocked,” Huffine said in an interview.
Food sales were the next to feel the effects of the Ozempic culture.
A 2023 study by Morgan Stanley found that over the past year, patients using GLP-1 drugs visited fast food restaurants 77% less often and pizza joints 74% less.
They also consumed 62% less alcohol and 22% said they stopped drinking alcohol altogether.
With the company predicting that 24 million people could be using diet pills by 2035, these losses could soon become catastrophic.
Restaurants that continue to consume expensive food won’t last long until Ozempic continues to change the way Americans eat, says Hank Cardello, a former food corporation executive who now teaches consumer health at Georgetown University and author of ” Stuffed: An Insider’s Look at Who (Really) Fats America.
“I don’t believe Ozempic will destroy the food industry, but it could still hurt companies that don’t adapt.”
Some are adapting, like food and beverage company Smoothie King, which just introduced “GLP-1 Support smoothies” to their menu.
In September, Nestlé unveiled a product line called Vital Pursuit, including cauliflower pizza and chicken fajitas, marketed to GLP-1 users.
The frozen meals – inspired by a YouGov survey showing that 36% of Ozempic users prefer frozen options – are high in protein and low in portions.
GNC, the health and nutrition retailer, announced that it will soon dedicate entire sections in its 2,300 stores nationwide to vitamins, proteins and supplements designed specifically for customers taking GLP-1 medications.
As some new store displays have teased: “You’re dealing with the side effects of GLP-1. now what? We can help.”
This type of marketing can be a minefield, especially if companies don’t want to run afoul of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), says Lauren Handel, an attorney for food, beverage and dietary supplement businesses.
“The FDA considers products to be drugs if they are intended to alleviate the side effects of drugs,” she says. Suggesting that a food or supplement can be used as part of a treatment program can be “dangerous,” says Handel.
But that hasn’t stopped GNC, or Herbalife, marketing their protein shakes on Facebook as nutritional support for people “using a GLP-1 weight loss drug.”
In January, vegan meal delivery service Daily Harvest began selling a line of “re-reported, calorie-conscious meals” to Ozempic users under the not-exactly-vague name “GLP-1 Support.”
Another health market getting a boost from Ozempic is gyms and health clubs. A Morgan Stanley survey found that people’s commitment to weekly exercise rose from 35% to 71% in a post-Ozempic world.
Some fitness club chains are doing more than just signing up new members.
Life Time Fitness launched a weight-loss clinic last year, with doctors who can prescribe GLP-1 medications.
And Equinox, with more than 100 clubs nationwide, introduced a GLP-1 protocol to members, promising it would help them “maintain and build muscle in the process.
Travel has also been affected by Ozempic, and not just because airlines could save $80 million a year in fuel costs if passengers lost 10 pounds, according to recent analysis.
As of 2022, US bookings are on the rise for vacations that favor physical activities over food, booze or seating.
Hiking and camping trips are up 52%, nature hikes are up 55%, and bike tours are up 46%, found a TripAdvisor Viator report that links the trend to the weight-loss drug boom.
Even the negative side effects of GLP-1 use, such as the dreaded “Ozempic Face,” has led to its own cottage industry.
Dr. Paul Jarrod Frank, a cosmetic dermatologist who coined the term, says biostimulant fillers are usually enough to fix the problem, but notes that he has stopped a growing wave of companies from marketing Ozempic supplements and vitamins to patients, promising more than they can give.
And then there’s surgery.
“I’ve seen a 30% increase in body surgery procedures over the past year because of GLP-1,” says New York plastic surgeon Dr. Darren Smith.
It’s becoming its own area of cosmetic surgery, he says, called the “Mounjaro Makeover,” named for the GLP-1 brand and designed to help patients on weight-loss drugs who have lost skin laxity in “areas aesthetically sensitive,” says Smith. .
The most problematic change, however, cannot be measured in profits.
Krass, the podcast’s host, has noted that “the pendulum feels like it’s swinging more towards toxic diet culture again.”
The body positivity and “weight-neutral” approach to health and fitness that was taking over the mainstream just a decade ago—even Weight Watchers rebranded as a “goodness” company called WW in 2018—is being replaced by “low standards of beauty”. of the early 2000s, says Krass.
It’s no coincidence that the New York Times list of the most stylish people of 2023 does not include a single overweight person. (2022, by contrast, had Lizzo and Beanie Feldstein.)
Some health watchers are not surprised.
“The garbage fire of diet culture has been burning all around us for decades,” says Jessica Setnick, a registered dietitian and eating disorder expert.
“These medications didn’t create the fire, they just kept it burning.” While it’s tempting to lay the blame at the feet of big pharma, Setnick says the longstanding cultural lie that “starvation and shrinking solves all our problems” is the real culprit in creating Ozempic culture.
At LA’s Plus Boutique, co-owner Guevara-Prete isn’t sweating too much Ozempic. “We’ve seen people who have weight loss surgery and get smaller clothes, and they almost always gain it back,” she says. “There have been fat people since the beginning and there always will be.”
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