First we had ‘heroin chic’ where we had to starve ourselves like a supermodel (‘nothing tastes as good as skinny feels’, right, Kate Moss?)
Then we enter the Kardashian years, when women around the world breathed a sigh of relief when we were finally allowed to have hips and an hourglass figure — as long as your butt was big enough to park a bicycle on.
And just when I thought it was safe to eat a pack of Tim Tams without feeling guilty (because it usually goes straight to my hips anyway), along came the age of Ozempic.
The shrinking celebrities were the first sign; then the emergence of the Ozempic face – sunken eyes and hollow cheeks – which all but confirms that someone is ‘sitting on them’.
With cheekbones as sharp as Louboutins, and collarbones you could hang your fur coat on, Ozempic figures (or Mounjaro or Saxenda – take your pick) were present full exhibition this year Golden Globes.
Celebrities staggered frailly across the red carpet, clinging to the nearest elbows, looking so paper-thin that a gust of wind might have knocked them over.
I could poll all the big names in Hollywood who I suspect are using semaglutide, but we’d run out of space (and possibly get into legal trouble) and I’d have a lot to say.
Suffice to say, it wasn’t about who was best dressed; it was about how distinct the Ozempic look has become. The red carpet glow-ups we once admired have been replaced by a depressing game of ‘spot the jabbers’.
Mail+ columnist Amanda Goff recalls the heroin-chic era and how it was pushed aside by Kardashian bodies in the 2010s. Now she says we are in the Ozempic era and we should be concerned
Now I’m not accusing any certain celebrities of being pincushions, but you can’t deny the bony frames and protruding chins. And what was most concerning was that few of these stars had much weight (if any) to lose at all.
It’s all gotten a bit embarrassing, hasn’t it?
And it worries me. Not just about Hollywood, but about all of us.
We are in an era where size 8 is no longer enough. Thinness, once considered a badge of honor because of the hard work and dedication involved, is now nothing to write home about.
With Ozempic everyone is thin. And you can whine all you want about it being the ‘lazy’ way, but soon everyone will be on to it.
What happens then? How can we redefine beauty in a world where thinness was godliness? Frankly, I worry about how impossibly high beauty standards will become for the next generation of young women.
Because yes, the beauty trends in Hollywood inevitably trickle down to our common folk.
The drugs don’t just change the faces and bodies of A-listers, reality stars and influencers. Now exhausted mothers, brides-to-be and even teenagers are Googling ‘how to get Ozempic’ and discovering it’s terrifyingly simple.
Kate Moss was an icon of “heroin chic” in the ’90s, but the skinny, lean looks of the supermodels of that era didn’t last long. (Kate is pictured on the Gucci catwalk in Milan on October 4, 1995)
Some of my friends in their 40s are trash talkers. A friend recently confided to me that her new lean body wasn’t, in fact, Pilates and kale smoothies, but daily injections of the GPL-1 hormone into her increasingly hollow waist.
I was shocked. She didn’t even have more than five pounds to lose – if that.
But while the skeletal look we see on movie stars, models and posh school moms is bad enoughwhat is to come is even worse. A ridiculously unrealistic body trend for all of us where being thin will no longer be enough, because everyone will be thin.
Soon, women will be expected to be thin And curvy, small But toned down. You need a body that has not only been emaciated by drugs, but also tightened and improved by needlesknives and liposuction.
It was French actress Catherine Deneuve who reportedly said, “After a certain age you have to choose between your hips or your face,” meaning you work hard to keep your body in shape but lose volume in your face, or the other way around.
Now we need to make sure both look perfect.
The message is clear: definitely use Ozempic. But make sure you don’t look like You are using Ozempic. So ensure a slim waist, but maintain a youthful face and maintain your curves. This is of course impossible to achieve without surgical and medical technology.
And it makes me angry.
Kim Kardashian’s voluptuous curves became desirable in the 2010s. These were better times for women. (Kim is pictured here in Los Angeles on December 19, 2014)
How much further can this madness go? What kind of message are we giving to our young women, our daughters, our sisters, our friends?
A dangerous one in my opinion.
And it all comes down to the same thing: you are not good enough as you are. You’re not pretty enough or thin enough, and unless you have a small fortune to spend on reshaping and reshaping your body, you never will be.
Lottie Moss, Kate’s younger half-sister, revealed last year that she had been hospitalized after overdosing on Ozempic. Her use of the weight loss drug, even though she has never been overweight, speaks volumes about the beauty standards in today’s society
And it has to stop.
I’m drawing a very clear line in the sand before the next generation of women starts looking more like aliens than actual aliens.
I was once one of those young girls growing up in the supermodel era. I chewed through laxatives and diuretics, and my diet consisted of dry Ryvita and tomatoes for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
I believed that if I could just look good in skinny jeans, my life would be as perfect as a supermodel’s, and that if I could just tighten my belt a little further, I would be desirable, sexy, and attractive .
I simply thought that I was never thin enough or good enough to be loved.
And let me warn the young women reading this: it got me nowhere. My desire to be thin made me sick, lonely, isolated and miserable. I got nothing out of it, except anorexia and a self-loathing that is difficult to overcome without medication and therapy.
Mothers, tell your daughters that it is possible to be happy with their bodies just the way they are. They come in all shapes and sizes, and always will. Strong – not skinny – is the new sexy.
The relentless pursuit of this new, unattainable body shape is not only exhausting, but also extremely harmful. I give the last word to my best friend, who says this: “I tell my daughter that if being skinny is the answer to a happy life, then all skinny people would be the happiest. But that’s not the case.’
So give us another Tim Tam, and let’s focus on shaping the most important part of ourselves: our mental health.