Ozempic On My Mind

What About The Shrinking Women?

Listening to a podcaster recently visiting Los Angeles, she expressed deep concern about how thin L.A. women appear.

“Something is going on in L.A.,” she vexed.

“Something is going ON.”

I didn’t have to think long before I thought, "I bet it’s the groundswell of popularity and easy access to Ozempic."

Whether my hunch is right or not, it sent me on another deep-thought dive into the cultural moment we are in as “the magic pill” seems to have arrived on the scene.

If you’re getting close to waving the white flag in your battle with body weight, thinking of giving a semaglutide a try, please remember that unless your beliefs that are inextricably tied to the behavior get addressed, you run the risk of becoming a slave to medication for the rest of your life. These medications come with side effects on the front end (which forces 30% of people to call it quits) and very little data in on the long-term effects.

The moment we find ourselves in is very reminiscent of the last weight-loss pill rage we lived through in the 1990s with Fen-Phen, which was discontinued in 1997 after reports of serious health issues like heart valve disease and pulmonary hypertension.

Although the mechanisms that make each of these created substances effective are different, one thing they share is their ability to bypass personhood - the reason why people;

1. Feel crappy and an “otherness” about their body in the first place, which causes unrest of soul and stress of body ad mind, which drives chronic illness, sickness, and disease.

2. Why a person finds deep solace in food.

While in my deep-thought dive I came across an article about semaglutides stating,

“Policymakers can talk endlessly about weight and waistlines and school dinners and sugar taxes and restaurant calorie counts, but they pay too little attention to how food, which ought to be a source of pleasure and nourishment and togetherness, has become the source of so much guilt and shame."

Policymakers and earthly governments will NEVER be able to answer why the human heart wants what it wants. The human heart and what it wants is governed by God alone. It’s a government Jesus bore on His back on the way to Calvary. And it’s a government of which there is no end.

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder,…. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end" Isaiah 9:6,7

The issue of why food is pleasure and is the source of so much guilt and shame goes way back to the beginning.

“So when the woman saw that the tress was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tress was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew the were naked (enter guilt and shame). And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.” Genesis 3:6-7

Before anyone decides to use this medication and sign up for the potential health risks, I pray they take some serious time to address the shame and their feeling of “otherness”. The Holy Spirit surely has something to say. It will take time to do this work. It will take slowing down, which the pace of modernity doesn’t make easy. But, if a person can’t slow down to do the deeper work of feeling “other,” I suspect there’s an idol in the camp. (Read Joshua 7:10-26)

And, at the very least, should a person choose to take this “magic pill,” may they use the time of reprieve from the food noise and poor habit loops to work on who they are in Christ and understanding their beliefs and new behaviors so they don’t have to be a lifelong slave to this medication or at risk of long-term side effects.

This post is not for all the shrinking women in Los Angeles, but I’m sure it’s for some.

I would never want to shame anyone for the road they walk, but may we all who follow Jesus never stop welcoming the prick of conviction. It’s the conviction that keeps us following. It’s our Good Shepherds’ staff and crook that comforts and convicts.

Peace,

Alisa