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With the advent of diet drugs like Ozempic, plus size stars are increasingly losing weight – and gaining haters.
To see a plus-size woman on a red carpet was, for a time, rather revolutionary. I hesitate to use that word for fear it sounds gouache and trite, but I’ll admit it rings true. Sadly.
Any body that wasn’t slim signalled that a long-standing aesthetic order was being, if not dismantled, at least interrupted. Hollywood has been a mecca of the European beauty ideal since its inception, favouring long, narrow, white bodies. So the visibility of women like Melissa McCarthey, Mindy Kaling, and Lizzo suggested that success in the public eye was no longer reserved for the thin.
In the past decade, plus size women have not only been in the spotlight, they’ve dominated it too. Adele is one of the most successful singers of her generation, and actors like McCarthy have gone from jovial sidekick typecasting to sweeping wins at awards ceremonies. This brazen freedom to occupy space has made others feel they can do the same.
Glamour’s Nicola Dall’asen writes about this sense of validation that comes from seeing larger women in this positive context. ‘Comparatively few plus-size women have been allowed past the exclusive gates of fame, but when they thrive in that traditionally thin space anyway, it makes my own successes feel possible and my own body feel worthy.’
But this feeling has begun to fray, particularly with the advent of weight-loss drugs like Ozempic. Just as quickly as body-positivity seemed to transform popular culture, it was being sidelined by old trends of hyper-slim, hyper-toned bodies (all of them notably female).
Whether re-packaged as ‘wellness’ or smuggled in behind gym and fitness trends, thinness has returned with a vengeance. And in its wake a strange and contradictory backlash has emerged.
‘I can’t look at Mindy Kaling anymore. Or Rebel Wilson. Or Adele,’ says Dall’asen. ‘Yes, it’s only because they’re significantly thinner.’
She acknowledges the irrationality of this response. Their bodies, she concedes, are not her business. And yet their shrinking presence feels like a loss – an erosion of hard-won visibility. The symbolic weight of their former bodies did not disappear with their waistlines. It lingers in the minds of those who once felt represented by them.
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And Dall’asen isn’t alone, either. Alex Light previously broached the uncomfortable response to celebrity weight loss in another Glamour feature, after singer Meghan Trainer revealed a drastic transformation to her social media following.
Trainer wasn’t scared to divulge she had used GLP-1s to achieve a new, slimmer look. ‘I’ve worked with a dietician, made huge lifestyle changes, started exercising with a trainer, and yes, I used science and support (shoutout to Mounjaro!) to help me after my 2nd pregnancy. And I’m so glad I did because I feel great.’
For many of her fans, this truth pill was too bitter to swallow. Many of them felt betrayed by Trainer’s weight loss, noting that her long standing support for the body positivity movement seemed insincere in the aftermath.
‘I liked her when she was chubby because I identified with her and I felt I broke the stereotype. Now I don’t, she is the typical artist with the perfect body we should have,’ said one comment.
This sense of emotional disorientation is particularly complex when it comes to figures like Trainer, who have arguably made their name off the back of a proximity to the body-positivity movement and its community. Trainer shot to fame with her breakout hit ‘All About That Bass’, which became an anthem for plus-size individuals and broke the beauty standard mould when it launched in 2014.
But there are also a number of ethical ambiguities at the center of this attitude shift. Why should celebrities owe us any insight into their physicality? Is favouring a person because they’re larger just as damaging as placing smaller bodies on a pedestal?
Writing for DAZED, Chloe Grace Laws reflects on these conundrums, asking whether those who have built their careers advocating for body positivity owe their audiences an explanation when they abandon it in pursuit of thinness.
‘A few years ago, I would have said a resolute no,’ states Laws. ‘Someone’s body is only their business, and it is the systems we live in that are at fault.’
But the rise of weight loss drugs changed things, she argues.
Lizzo wearing an Ozempic costume for Halloween. pic.twitter.com/WYjCLrDVIT
— Pop Base (@PopBase) October 26, 2024
