This is the Weight and Healthcare newsletter! If you like what you are reading, please consider subscribing and/or sharing! I’ve been getting a lot of requests to write about Weight Watchers’ acquisition of Sequence, so here we go. One note that, in order to keep this from becoming Tolstoy-esque in length, there are a lot of links so that you can dig in more where you want!
Tangentially related: The Washington Post recently published an "advice" piece by a Dr Silvana Pannain, an "obesity expert," touting the new "weight loss drugs" as perfectly safe. In their reply to the question "Do people need to take the drugs for life?", Dr Pannain says they do, and claims that their patients want to stay on the drugs and only quit when insurance changes force them off. When asked about side effects, the milder ones are listed and the very serious ones aren't even mentioned. Dr Pannain aggressively pushes the agenda that these drugs are the magic cure for fat people everywhere because, of course, fat people bad!
Dr Pannain made over $13,000 last year in payments directly from Novo-Nordisk, that makes those drugs.
I’m in my 40s. One of my earliest childhood memories was when i was 3 years old or so, and my mom was carefully measuring a tablespoon of peanut butter for her single piece of whole wheat toast for breakfast. I asked why she didn’t just spread the peanut butter on her toast like she did mine. She said weight watchers said that was all she needed. She carried a little weight watchers branded log book around. She was limited to 600 caps a day, until she’d lost some arbitrary amount of weight, when she was rewarded with 1000 cal days.
I think a lot about how that company evolved into the weight watchers we know today. 40+ years of pseudoscience, harm, and trauma.
It’s amazing how hard they’re working to stay relevant… how long before we get WW-branded WLS?
As I recall, Weight Watchers handed out Phen-Fen like candy in the 90's. What's the saying? "History doesn't repeat itself but it sure does rhyme"?
I expect to see the same trajectory with Wegovy, etc. Hailed as a miracle, widely prescribed for weight loss, doesn't work long-term, and finally found to have significant deleterious effects. There are already rumblings of thyroid cancer. Given that the usual proposed mechanism for fat people developing diabetes is that the pancreas "gets tired" and quits producing the amount of insulin that insulin-resistant bodies need to function, I look forward (/s) to the rash of new and younger diagnoses of diabetes in people who started taking semaglutide for weight loss. Which will no doubt be blamed on their weight. Before taking the medication. Or after quitting. Or something. Not the drug. Not at first. Maybe not for quite a while. It's always about the fat.
I don't think the trajectory will be as rapid as it was for Phen-Fen. I suspect the problems won't show up as quickly, and they'll be too close to things already ascribed to fatter bodies. It will take a lot of lower weight people developing "fat people diseases" when they "shouldn't" before anyone takes a serious look into the problems of using these medications for size manipulation.
I think it's very telling that despite all the recent hand-wringing over fat people's health, the concern was never about health. It was always about appearance. It was--and is--about being thin. Being conventionally attractive. The fact that people already in thinner bodies are clamoring (and getting) Wegovy proves it was never about health. Health be damned.
Get thin at all costs. Get thin or else. Get thin or die drying.
I haven't read your writing in a few, maybe 4-5, years but as soon as I saw that Weight Watchers was going to now be in the business of pushing Ozempic on fat people I thought about you and looked to see if you had written about it.
I'm so glad I found your writing and learned to live my life authentically and fully as a fat person a number of years ago with your help so thank you.
Tangentially related: The Washington Post recently published an "advice" piece by a Dr Silvana Pannain, an "obesity expert," touting the new "weight loss drugs" as perfectly safe. In their reply to the question "Do people need to take the drugs for life?", Dr Pannain says they do, and claims that their patients want to stay on the drugs and only quit when insurance changes force them off. When asked about side effects, the milder ones are listed and the very serious ones aren't even mentioned. Dr Pannain aggressively pushes the agenda that these drugs are the magic cure for fat people everywhere because, of course, fat people bad!
Dr Pannain made over $13,000 last year in payments directly from Novo-Nordisk, that makes those drugs.
This is terrifying; no hyperbole. I wish I could take back every dollar I ever gave to Weight Watchers and use it to promote fat acceptance!
I’m in my 40s. One of my earliest childhood memories was when i was 3 years old or so, and my mom was carefully measuring a tablespoon of peanut butter for her single piece of whole wheat toast for breakfast. I asked why she didn’t just spread the peanut butter on her toast like she did mine. She said weight watchers said that was all she needed. She carried a little weight watchers branded log book around. She was limited to 600 caps a day, until she’d lost some arbitrary amount of weight, when she was rewarded with 1000 cal days.
I think a lot about how that company evolved into the weight watchers we know today. 40+ years of pseudoscience, harm, and trauma.
It’s amazing how hard they’re working to stay relevant… how long before we get WW-branded WLS?
I'm hardly surprised. I wish I were.
As I recall, Weight Watchers handed out Phen-Fen like candy in the 90's. What's the saying? "History doesn't repeat itself but it sure does rhyme"?
I expect to see the same trajectory with Wegovy, etc. Hailed as a miracle, widely prescribed for weight loss, doesn't work long-term, and finally found to have significant deleterious effects. There are already rumblings of thyroid cancer. Given that the usual proposed mechanism for fat people developing diabetes is that the pancreas "gets tired" and quits producing the amount of insulin that insulin-resistant bodies need to function, I look forward (/s) to the rash of new and younger diagnoses of diabetes in people who started taking semaglutide for weight loss. Which will no doubt be blamed on their weight. Before taking the medication. Or after quitting. Or something. Not the drug. Not at first. Maybe not for quite a while. It's always about the fat.
I don't think the trajectory will be as rapid as it was for Phen-Fen. I suspect the problems won't show up as quickly, and they'll be too close to things already ascribed to fatter bodies. It will take a lot of lower weight people developing "fat people diseases" when they "shouldn't" before anyone takes a serious look into the problems of using these medications for size manipulation.
I think it's very telling that despite all the recent hand-wringing over fat people's health, the concern was never about health. It was always about appearance. It was--and is--about being thin. Being conventionally attractive. The fact that people already in thinner bodies are clamoring (and getting) Wegovy proves it was never about health. Health be damned.
Get thin at all costs. Get thin or else. Get thin or die drying.
(and really, no one minds if you die trying)
THIS IS A NIGHTMARE!!! And all the dangerous lies/half truths they get to use to sell this frikkin mess!! Disgusting!!!
I haven't read your writing in a few, maybe 4-5, years but as soon as I saw that Weight Watchers was going to now be in the business of pushing Ozempic on fat people I thought about you and looked to see if you had written about it.
I'm so glad I found your writing and learned to live my life authentically and fully as a fat person a number of years ago with your help so thank you.