Written by: Angela Derrick, Ph.D. & Susan McClanahan, Ph.D.
Date Posted: July 20, 2025 9:47 pm
If you’re a woman in your 40s, 50s, or beyond and feel frustrated with your body, exhausted from decades of dieting, and invisible in a culture obsessed with youth, you’re not alone. The rise in popularity of GLP-1 medications like Ozempic, Wegovy, and Mounjaro isn’t just about aesthetics. It’s about regaining control, finding relief, and holding onto hope. But behind the headlines and transformation photos lies a deeper story that deserves attention.
GLP-1 receptor agonists, initially developed for managing type 2 diabetes, have exploded in popularity due to their powerful weight loss effects. More women in midlife are now turning to them, often after a lifetime of battling weight issues, body image concerns, and health systems that have failed to support them with compassion.
Women in their 40s, 50s, and 60s are now among the fastest-growing groups using GLP-1s for weight loss. It’s not just about looks. It’s about feeling visible again, taking back control over bodies that seem to be changing quickly, and finding a solution after years of disappointment.
A GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide-1) medication can help someone lose weight when nothing else has worked, as it addresses multiple biological factors that often sabotage weight loss efforts, especially those beyond willpower or lifestyle changes alone.
Here’s how it works:
For people who have tried everything—exercise, calorie counting, therapy, even bariatric consultations—GLP-1s can be a game-changer because they target the biology of weight regulation, not just the behavior.
The demographics of people using GLP-1 for weight loss have expanded quickly, and yes, there are legitimate concerns about how this trend might impact eating disorders and long-term eating habits.
The largest group using GLP-1 drugs is middle-aged adults, specifically those in their 40s to 60s. Many in this group have struggled with weight issues for years or decades.
Younger adults in their 20s and 30s are also turning to GLP-1s, often getting them through telehealth services, even when they are not clinically overweight but are seeking weight loss related to body image.
People with higher socioeconomic status use these medicines more frequently because the high costs and lack of insurance coverage are prohibitive for most others.
Finally, public figures and online personalities glamorize these drugs and promote cultural narratives centered on body image, thinness, and weight loss.
Menopause causes hormonal changes that impact metabolism, shift fat distribution, and affect energy and mood. These natural transitions are seldom met with understanding. Instead, society pathologizes aging and often promotes thinness and youth as solutions.
For many women in midlife, this isn’t their first attempt at finding a solution. Most have cycled through diets, fitness fads, and shame-based health advice. The cultural appeal of a medical fix can seem like a lifeline. But it also signals a warning: women are expected to change their bodies rather than be supported in embracing them.
GLP-1s reduce appetite and slow gastric emptying, making it easier to eat less. But for some, especially those with a long history of dieting or disordered eating, this can trigger patterns of restriction, guilt, and control.
When weight loss is praised regardless of how it’s achieved, women may internalize the idea that hunger is a sign of weakness and that thinness is worth any sacrifice. This mindset can deepen shame, hide emotional struggles, and reinforce the false belief that thinness equals health or goodness.
Disordered Eating Risk
GLP-1s suppress hunger, and for some, this may feel like a “shortcut” to thinness. People prone to disordered eating, especially restrictive tendencies, may use the drugs to avoid food altogether or ignore bodily cues. There’s concern it might reinforce the idea that eating less is always better, rather than cultivating a healthy relationship with food.
Body Image Pressure
As weight loss becomes more “pharmacologically accessible,” cultural pressure to be thin may intensify, especially for women and younger people, making it harder to accept natural body diversity.
Overuse in Non-Clinical Cases
Some individuals are using GLP-1s without meeting current medical guidelines, creating potential for misuse or overuse and perpetuating an unrealistic standard of thinness.
What Happens After?
Long-term data is limited. If people stop the drug, especially without having changed their eating habits or relationship with food, their weight can rebound. This can mirror yo-yo dieting effects, which can harm both physical and mental health.
Dr. Angela Derrick, co-owner of SpringSource Psychological Center says, “I stay very open-minded and non-judgmental when clients come to me to discuss their interest in GLP-1 medication. I want them to bring these topics to my attention so that we can explore their needs, desires, and fears together. My goal is to give clients an opportunity to understand the pros and cons for their unique circumstances and develop treatment that serves them the best overall.”
There is a concern that GLP-1’s may involve bypassing rather than dealing with some of society’s worst tendencies when it comes to people in larger bodies. It may even increase this behavior in light of the fact that there is now a potentially quick medical “fix.” Fat shaming is not just a cultural quirk—it’s a systemic issue. Our healthcare, media, and social systems reward thinness and punish fatness. Women—especially women of color and those in larger bodies—are often dismissed, judged, or misdiagnosed.
Men have historically shaped the beauty standards that idealize youth and thinness. From media executives to film directors to healthcare policymakers, women are often presented from a heterosexual male perspective, emphasizing their appearance and positioning them as objects of desire rather than full subjects. This viewpoint shapes how women are portrayed and how they learn to see themselves, often reinforcing gendered power dynamics and limiting expressions of identity.
Let’s face the facts: fat shaming is profitable. The diet, beauty, and fitness industries make billions by convincing you that you are not enough as you are. When people stop believing they need to be fixed, these industries lose profits.
Challenging a lifetime of cultural norms—thin is good, fat is bad—is complex and difficult. It’s everywhere, in media, healthcare, family systems, and even language.
Shame is a powerful social tool. Fat shaming acts as a form of social control, pressuring people—especially women—to conform. What makes it dangerous is how it’s normalized, even disguised as “concern” or “health advice.”
Our culture’s ideal body (thin, toned, youthful, white) is more than a beauty standard—it’s a power structure. Fatphobia frequently targets bodies that don’t match this ideal, especially those of women of color and working-class women.
From childhood, women are conditioned to be seen. Even if individual families did not fully adhere to these norms, society ensures that women are taught that their appearance is their most important asset. Being thin and youthful is portrayed as the key to love, opportunity, and visibility. In this system, aging and weight gain are viewed as failures, rather than natural aspects of life.
Men are allowed to age and gain weight with far less social consequence, while older women are seen as “letting themselves go.” A man’s value can be tied to power, status, or intellect. A woman’s value, culturally, is often reduced to how she looks.
Although women are ultimately not responsible for setting the standards, they are often involved in enforcing them to maintain social cache, appear successful, or increase their power within the system, or simply because of social conditioning.
Women in midlife are particularly at risk when it comes to the use and effects of GLP-1 medications—and the broader cultural pressure around weight—for several intertwined biological, psychological, and social reasons.
Hormonal Changes & Weight Gain
Lifelong Body Image Conditioning
Sandwich Pressure
Ageism & Invisibility
History of Dieting
Because GLP-1s intersect with all of the above—they offer hope, control, and rapid change—but also carry potential for emotional dependence, over-restriction, or worsened body image. If not paired with psychological support, they risk becoming another chapter in a lifetime of food-related struggle, especially for women already navigating profound change.
What’s needed is compassionate, holistic care—not just pharmacological fixes.
There’s no easy answer—but resistance is possible, and powerful.
You’re not imagining the pressure. It is unbelievable. But it’s also survivable—and even transformable—through truth-telling, solidarity, and the radical act of loving ourselves as we are, in a world that profits when we don’t.
GLP-1 medications can be life-changing and medically appropriate for many, especially those with diabetes. But their popularity also raises ethical and psychological concerns, especially around how we define health, who gets access, and whether we are reinforcing harmful norms rather than addressing the root causes of disordered eating and weight stigma.
The conversation needs to stay grounded in health equity, body autonomy, and long-term care—not just numbers on a scale.
We need a healthcare model that prioritizes well-being over weight loss, one that understands the emotional and social realities of aging in a female body. We need conversations that affirm that hunger is not a failure, that body diversity is natural, and that worth is not a dress size.
GLP-1 medications are not inherently bad. For many, they are helpful tools. But they should not be the only path offered, and never the standard of success.
Whether or not you choose to use a GLP-1, know this: you deserve respect, support, and care without conditions. Your value is not tied to your weight. And your body—even as it changes—is not a problem to be solved.
True liberation isn’t about shrinking ourselves. It’s about finally stepping outside the systems that told us we had to.
National Eating Disorders Association
The Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP) at SpringSource Psychological Center
Designed for adults who are navigating factors unique to early, mid, and later adulthood.
Our founders, Ph.D. psychologists—Dr. Susan McClanahan and Dr. Angela Derrick—have been leaders in the eating disorder, mood, and anxiety space for decades, including extensive work with adults experiencing binge eating, compulsive overeating, body image issues, metabolic syndrome, and other eating-related concerns. With the surge in GLP-1 use, we’re seeing more adults—especially women in midlife—seeking emotional and psychological support alongside their medical treatment. We are a size-inclusive, evidence-informed practice with deep experience supporting patients across the weight spectrum.
We recognize that while these medications can be an important tool, they don’t address the underlying drivers that so often complicate care—stress, shame, disordered eating patterns, and body image struggles. That’s where we come in.
We offer both individual therapy and group outpatient programs (including evening and weekend availability), designed to help patients stabilize, strengthen coping skills, and build a healthier relationship with food, body, and self while on their medical journey.
Call SpringSource today at 224-202-6260 | in**@****************er.com | We offer free 15-minute initial consultations.
We provide in-person therapy in Northbrook and Chicago, with telehealth therapy available throughout Illinois.
© 2026 SpringSource: Eating, Weight & Mood Disorders | Designed by 800Commerce
Serving: Chicagoland Area, Northbrook, Evanston, Arlington Heights, Glenview, Skokie, Palatine, Elgin, Cicero, Schaumburg, Des Plaines, Orland Park, and throughout Illinois