I’ve lost count of the amount of social media content I’ve seen this year about the so-called “death of body positivity,” alongside the sheer volume of posts discussing the rise of Ozempic. I’ve seen countless captions along the lines of, “in a stream of Ozempic-core, here's my body as it is.”
Much of this conversation has been fuelled by a visible cultural shift over the past year. Weight-loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy have moved firmly into the mainstream, endorsed by celebrities, normalised through influencer culture and increasingly framed as a lifestyle choice rather than a medical intervention. In the UK alone, reports suggest that hundreds of thousands of people are now using GLP-1 medications, either through private prescriptions or the NHS — a number that continues to rise.
As thinness reasserts itself as the dominant ideal, many people feel that the inclusive, celebratory language of body positivity has been quietly pushed aside. I’ve felt this shift personally. During the body positivity boom of the late 2010s and early 2020s, I was working regularly as a curve model, booked for campaigns that claimed to champion diversity and representation. Now, that work has become far less consistent, and I’ve found myself working outside of the modeling world to keep myself afloat. This reflects a broader industry retreat from visibly celebrating bodies that fall outside the shrinking norm.
While I deeply respect those creators who take a stand, who show themselves and their bodies as they are and practise self-acceptance, I still find myself wondering: why does this need to feel like an act of resistance at all? It feels as though we’ve drifted so far from what the body positivity movement, which dates back to the 1960s, originally set out to do. While the term ‘body positivity’ only entered our lexicon this side of the millennium, it was decades ago that activists began campaigning for the liberation of those cruelly and unfairly treated for simply existing in a marginalised body. At its core, it was about centring those bodies and creating space for people to simply exist as they are, without explanation or justification.
But with the rise of Ozempic, body positivity — or even the language of being ‘body positive’ — no longer feels central to the conversation. As someone who once passionately championed the movement, this shift has been noticeable and reflective of a wider cultural change toward the heroin chic of the early noughties.
Because of this, I’ve chosen to move in a direction that prioritises protecting my peace and simply existing in my vessel — the body that carries me, sustains me and allows me to live each day. I hold deep gratitude for my body. My work now centres around body neutrality: stepping back and recognising the body positivity movement for what it was: a movement. And for a time, it was a powerful one. Acknowledging this doesn’t mean the work ends; it simply means approaching it with clarity and compassion.
Trying to shrink yourself, trying to take up as little space in this world as possible and trying to control your body lead only to anguish. If you do one thing for yourself this January, remember that.
In this space, I’ve come to know that my body is divine and not defined by any movement or trend. Resistance, in the face of the rising Ozempic wave, doesn’t have to be loud or performative. Sometimes, it’s found in the quiet power of existing, fully and beautifully as we are. We can’t dismantle systems designed to make us dislike ourselves by forcing language that no longer reflects its original intention.
Preserving my peace remains paramount. As we move into the new year, I hope that each person, brand and creative does what they can for those in marginalised bodies within their own capacity: speaking up for the voices that tend to get lost in the conversation of body acceptance. I don’t know whether the Ozempic wave will fade into obscurity; I hope that it does. But if it doesn’t, I hope we continue to centre ourselves first, our mental health, our bodies and our inner worlds. From there, we can choose to speak up, if and when it feels aligned.
In the space I occupy now, fighting for body positivity in the way I once did feels different. When the foundation of movements like the Ozempic wave is rooted in quietly encouraging self-doubt, it’s understandable that the energy that once fuelled body positivity has shifted. Perhaps we don’t reclaim it exactly as it was, but instead accept its evolution. This doesn’t mean hope is lost, it simply means the work is changing, and continuing in new, more honest ways.
Looking ahead to 2026, I hold a vision of collective discernment, a gentle rejection of anything that pulls us away from ourselves and a powerful rise in radically loving who we already are. I hope you’ll join me.
The government's obesity lead is calling for restaurants to make women's portion sizes smaller.
