If you had looked at my google history when I was a teenager…
Hope Virgo
If you had looked at my google history when I was a teenager, my search engine was packed full of ‘how to lose weight?’ ‘How can I lose X in X days?’ ‘Drugs to help me lose weight.’
I would have spent any amount of money to access drugs, I would have lied my way through online assessments to get them and I would have been convinced that none of the named side effects would ever happen to me. At this point in my life, I was in the grips of anorexia.
Weight-loss jabs are becoming increasingly accessible now with more people using them and accessing them. They have become the small talk at social gatherings. What sort of world are we creating where people are fatphobic, using drugs to change their weight and normalising disordered relationships with food and our bodies. On top of this, the reality is right now, weight loss jabs are already harming people with eating disorders, and they will continue to do so.
The NHS 10-year plan included weight loss jabs in their planning to help tackle obesity without considering the risk of serious unintended consequences, particularly for the millions living with or at risk of eating disorders. When weight-loss medications are promoted widely without sufficient psychological screening or follow-up care, they can exacerbate disordered eating, body dysmorphia, and the harmful notion that thinner automatically means healthier.
When we look at the statistics, we know that more than half of people on weight loss jabs give them up after just six months. Considering that 40–80% of our body weight and height is driven by genetics and obesity itself may be 40–70% inherited.
Oxford University researchers reviewed 11 studies on weight-loss jabs and found that almost everyone regained the lost weight within 10 months of stopping treatment. These drugs may provide a temporary fix but do nothing to tackle the root causes of obesity, including poverty, poor access to green spaces, and the high cost of nutritious food and energy.
It is these facts, coupled with the many stories we hear of people who have been harmed by weight-loss jabs that I as a campaigner, and someone with lived experience of anorexia need to remember. Those evenings when I lay awake in bed feeling uneasy in my body. When I am at the park with friends who have recently had kids, and they tell me they are taking weight-loss drugs and that anorexic voice kicks in telling me to lose weight by taking these drugs.
It’s worrying how limited the safeguards surrounding the weight loss jabs are and as someone in recovery from anorexia and perhaps given having just had a baby not too long ago the conversations surrounding these are triggering even me. My brain now knows better than to go down that route, but I know had this been years ago, I would have done anything to get my hands on these drugs.
It’s scary not just for us, but for future generations, creating an environment where we are told thin is best and where we have unrealistic standards, a total disregard for those affected by eating disorders and a person’s mental health. It’s scary how we are encouraged to look for quick fixes when emotionally there may be other stuff going on. I know for me skinny never solved anything!
The Dump The Scales campaign group launched an open letter was launched on the 7 July which calls on the Government to suspend the widescale rollout of weight-loss drugs until full impact assessments have been completed, particularly regarding mental health and eating disorder prevalence, to reframe public health messaging to prioritise wellbeing, nutrition education, and physical activity for enjoyment and health, not weight loss, ensure that all prevention of obesity programs are coordinated with prevention of eating disorder programs and include relevant stakeholders and people with lived experience.
I know for so many of you, you will read this and think maybe it will be okay if you take these drugs, you may think it will all work out, or that everything will be fine, but the reality is, taking these drugs not only has physical and psychological negative impacts but it also won’t solve anything with how you feel. You will get to a certain size, but your mindset won’t have changed. The anorexia will tell you to keep going, lose a bit more, keep going, keep taking the drugs. Yes it is hard when the world is shouting at us to lose weight, but don’t let weight loss jabs pull you back!