Celebrities are becoming unrecognisable. The problem isn’t Ozempic

There has been considerable consternation about the recent red-carpet pictures of the women from the Wicked movies – Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo and Michelle Yeoh.

Sparkling, accomplished, dignified, noticeably thinning women.

Scrolling through celebrity pictures today often involves a moment of squinting, rubbing your eyes, then looking again at an almost unrecognisable star who has dramatically shrunk in a matter of months. The range is broad – Kelly Osbourne, Meghan Trainor, Amy Schumer, Adele, Rebel Wilson, Kelly Clarkson, Serena Williams, Mindy Kaling, Oprah, Whoopi Goldberg, Kathy Bates and a bunch of blokes too, like John Goodman.

Of course, many of them are using weight-loss drugs.

My concern here is not the use of Ozempic, which has transformed many lives for the better, nor losing weight for valid health or personal reasons.

What worries me is the rapid elevation of a more extreme, rail-thin appearance in the thick of all of this, for reasons that aren’t immediately clear – less about weight loss than wastage.

The New York Post has dubbed it “Hollywood’s Ultra Thin Trend”. The Guardian warned of “shrinking girl summer”, a depressing downgrade from hot girl or brat summer.

It’s about the fact that images of twig-like arms and protruding clavicles are now almost de rigueur on red carpets. And the continuing prevalence of the wildly popular “Skinnytok” content in social media, which contains posts berating women for eating, glorifying an anorexic look, much like the pro-ana (anorexic) websites of the 2000s. A ban TikTok placed on the hashtag after European regulators expressed concerns has largely been ineffective.

Here are some gems from the Skinnytok genre, dominated by thin, white women:

“If your stomach is growling, pretend it’s applauding you.”

“To be small, eat small. To be big, eat big.”

“You don’t need a treat. You’re not a dog.”

“Everything gets better when you’re skinny”.

The photos of the Wicked actresses land with a thump in the middle of this content. One Tumblr user wrote of Grande: “I need to know her BMI so bad”. Another says: “She’s so goals”.

Not all of the content is this extreme, and much of the commentary shows women trying to take control of their health, but the advice goes far beyond just nutrition and fitness, to advocate for dangerously restricted calorie intakes.

Alongside this fashionable emaciation, numerous outlets have declared we have reached the “end of body positivity”. And those of us who lived through the heroin chic years are wondering how the hell we got here again.

Can it be a coincidence – as women’s reproductive rights are being eroded in America, and female journalists are admonished to be “quiet, piggy” by a president who used to run beauty pageants, that women are quietly erasing themselves? Surely that’s too neat a line to draw.

Naomi Wolf’s intellectual output has been perplexing and often nonsensical in recent years, but the one idea she burnt into the consciousness of teens and young women in the 1990s with her book The Beauty Myth was that the closer, historically, women get to power, the more the pressure on them to whittle down rises. In other words, as women get politically stronger, the “ideal” shape becomes physically weaker.

It was a simplistic but compelling argument, mounted as near skeletal models stomped down catwalks with dark-ringed eyes and Kate Moss declared: “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels”. Having been skinny at various times in my life, especially following major stress or major surgery, I can vouch for the falseness of this statement.

When I was last in New York a year ago, an agent told me Ozempic was being increasingly used – or abused – by women who were already thin to get even thinner, waving her fork at the parade of paper-thin socialites walking past. I left several dinners hungry because not enough food was being ordered and people picked at their plates.

I want to stress – there should be no shame or stigma attached to taking Ozempic, which has been genuinely transformative. The health benefits are immense, even if there are growing concerns about unknown side effects, like links to depression, suicidal thoughts and pregnancies – which can be a fortunate side effect too.

Nor do I think it is appropriate, kind or healthy to constantly scrutinise the weight of public-facing women, even under the guise of “concern”. It’s rude and counter-productive.

And to insist that women who have been curvier, and critical of limiting beauty standards, must always stay the same size, is daft.

But, something deeply unnerving is going on. And we do need to talk about it. Musician Teniola Keck posted: “We can’t just keep saying it’s not your body, you can’t comment on it, when not commenting on it is leading to a rise in ED [eating disordered] culture, a rise in restrictive eating, a rise in literally just everyone wanting to be smaller, a rise in Ozempic sales because people want to be skinny now.” Keck’s point – as someone who has previously struggled with disordered eating when they were young – is that kids are watching.

Millions of adults are watching too. Some, like British writer Rose Stokes, laments what she sees as the punishing, sudden end to body positivity and the pushing of the idea that female empowerment involves visibility of bones. Her partner walked in on her scrolling through Instagram, crying.

“Gone are the days when there was a deluge of messaging that told us to love our bodies no matter their size,” she writes in The Guardian. “When brands were falling over themselves in the who-can-shout-self-love-the-loudest Olympics. When Vogue, once a shrine to the skinny, declared three plus-size women were the new supers and plastered them on the cover. Instead, in a change I’d never have believed possible just two years ago, we have somehow been thrust back into a noughties-level skinny worship culture that is bringing up the same feelings I’ve been running from since I was a girl.”

Billions of dollars have been generated by making women feel bad about their bodies. Surely the best way to push back is by taking control of your health – but none of us should stomach the rebranding of under-nourishment as glamorous.

Julia Baird is a journalist, author and regular columnist. Her latest book is Bright Shining: how grace changes everything.

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