Eating disorders specialists say Ozempic’s widespread promotion reinforces the message that weight loss should always be a goal
As a teen and into her 20s, Debra Wells-Hopey bought women’s magazines by the dozen and devoured all the articles about weight loss she could find.
But the act of restricting food often “pulls the trigger” for people prone to eating disorders – so for them, Ozempic could be “a one-way fast-track ticket,” said Wells-Hopey, who recovered with hospital treatment and is now a program manager for Eating Disorders Nova Scotia. Manufactured by Novo Nordisk, Ozempic is an injection approved by Health Canada for treating Type 2 diabetes. Its sister drug, Wegovy, has been approved for treating obesity but is not yet available in Canada. Because the active ingredient – semaglutide – is the same in both medications, some Canadian doctors have prescribed Ozempic off-label at higher doses for patients with obesity.
“ just another example of how diet culture is telling us that we should lose weight if we can because living in a larger body is a bad thing. And that’s what keeps us in a cycle of diet culture,” Wells-Hopey said. “There’s young people who come in lots of different shapes and sizes,” said Dr. Leanna Isserlin, a psychiatrist with the eating disorders program at Ottawa pediatric hospital CHEO.
“ saying ‘your body is a problem and really at any cost we will help you to change your body. Those are messages that stick with kids for their life,” Eberhardt said.