The demand for GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide-1) medicines like Ozempic, Wegovy, and Mounjaro is disrupting the world of weight loss. What was once a treatment for type 2 diabetes has now become a breakthrough solution for obesity and the go-to option for quick pound shedding. It’s obvious these drugs are trimming waistlines across the nation; what may be less obvious is that they might also reshape societal beauty standards.
Throughout history, beauty standards—the aesthetic of what’s desirable—have evolved with social values, economic conditions, technological innovations, and cultural influences. The alchemy of these forces creates an archetypal silhouette to which both men and women measure themselves and evaluate others. Those who meet the criteria of these standards are considered physically attractive and, therefore, benefit from the pervasive and profound social benefits of beauty.
And these benefits are significant. As the French writer Stendhal once wrote, “Beauty is the promise of happiness.” Media productions like movies, music, and folklore evidence what we have always known intuitively and through our own experiences: being beautiful comes with empirical, net-positive advantages. Attractive people are more likely to be perceived as virtuous, competent, smart, likeable, and happy. Therefore, beauty acts a social cue that imbues its possessor with cultural capital and associated status.
Among the collection of factors that constitute our conception of beauty, like one’s face, for instance, thinness has historically played a complex role as a marker of both beauty and status. In ancient societies, fuller-figured bodies were the desired aesthetic, signifying fertility, health, and access to means. Therefore, being thin was not desirable. The ability to “put on pounds” was an outward demonstration of one’s prosperity. The voluptuous Venus of Willendorf figurine, estimated to be created 25,000 years ago, likely reflected society’s focus on survival and reproduction—particularly for women.
By ancient Egyptian times, art and literature suggest a social preference for slender but not overly thin physiques. In ancient Greece and Rome, men’s athleticism and women’s soft curves were celebrated as ideal representations of beauty. Later, as famine and disease ravaged medieval Europe, fuller bodies were seen as signs of wealth and high social standing. Religious art frequently depicted the Virgin Mary and other revered figures with rounder forms, aligning with cultural ideals of abundance and divine favor.
Physique as a symbol of affluence and status continued throughout the ages, from the Renaissance era into the Baroque period. Wealthy individuals could afford rich diets to keep them plump and insulated from the manual labor that kept the working-class lean, so thinness was not desired.
However, by the Victorian era, culture had shifted. The concept of femininity became intertwined with notions of moral virtue and self-discipline. To be thin now symbolized control of one’s body and adherence to societal expectations. Subsequent innovations like the corset helped people of means achieve this new aesthetic, creating exaggerated hourglass figures by contorting natural bodies into unnatural shapes.
By the 20th century, thinness was the dominate beauty standard in the West, a marker of class distinction and social status. The pervasive and prolific expansion of media during this time helped cement these archetypes on to the present.
Today, celebrities, models, and influencers who maintain slim physiques are routinely celebrated in the media and perceived as having access to more resources—time for fitness, high-quality foods, and healthcare. These perceptions place thin people in a privileged position and inspire society’s curiosity in diets, exercise regiments, and broader beauty lifestyles, in hopes of potentially achieving this standard. These curiosities have fueled a $163 billion weight management market in the US, a magazine economy, and a booming medical industry that helped commodify thinness through surgical procedures and drugs. Together, they reinforce our standard of beauty.
To rework these designations, those outside the hegemonic standard have espoused the virtues of body positivity to promote value in the absence of thinness. And people bought into it. Ideals around self-acceptance and the expansion of beauty codes were embraced and promoted in the dominate cultural discourse throughout society—including the those with and without status alike.
Then GLP-1s arrived on the scene, and thinness became more achievable. What had been historically tied to virtue (willpower and exercise) and means (diet) was now medically accessible, empowering those who have struggled with weight loss in the past. Even advocates of body positivity soon became partakers.
Initially, GLP-1 treatments were expensive and largely available only to those with private health insurance or existing financial means wherewithal. This reinforced the idea that those who are thin (even if only achieved through medical interventions) are inherently more successful. However, as pharmaceutical companies work to expand access, the cost of these drugs has started to decrease, and insurance companies have begun to offer more coverage for weight loss treatments. Now, what was once reserved for the privileged is becoming more democratized, potentially leveling the playing field on the social advantages of thinness.
Director-to-Consumer brand, Hims & Hers, brought this democratization to the biggest media moment in the country when it debuted its latest ad at this year’s Super Bowl broadcast. The ad positioned Hims & Hers’ GLP-1 product as an accessible alternative to the costly options offered by large healthcare providers, challenging what the 60-second film calls “a system that was meant to keep us sick and stuck” with “medications that work–but they’re priced for profits, not for patients.
The statement was enough to grab the attention of Americans and healthcare companies alike, exciting some praise and even some backlash around the brand’s claims and the efficacy of its product and product testing. Be that as it may, Him & Hers public entrance to the GLP-1 discourse pushes the medicines even closer to democratization, and this democratization could very well catalyze a new imagining of beauty.
Just weeks ago, the internet was in a tizzy after Walmart released an $80 dupe bag that resembled the iconic Hermes Birkin bag, which retails anywhere between $9,000 and $30,000 (or more). The resemblance was uncanny, and it made existing Birkin owners nervous. If the aesthetic of Hermes was more democratized, would the real thing still be worth it?
It’s a tale as old as time: as unattainable products like luxury goods become more accessible to the public, their status can diminish, leading the privileged to seek alternatives to signify their standing in the social hierarchy. The French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu refers to this phenomenon as social distinction: the abandonment of products, behaviors, and aesthetics as a differentiation strategy when lower socioeconomic groups begin to adopt them.
These are the forces that will likely reshape beauty standards in a GLP-1 world. If thinness becomes ubiquitous, it’s only a matter of time before a new standard of beauty (and status) emerges. As the silhouette of American culture slims due to the adoption of GLP-1 drugs, those with privilege are sure to start pursuing something more differentiating and less medically modifiable. Of course, as those with status embrace whatever this new schema for physical attractiveness will be, it will no doubt set off a cyclic ripple effect that will trigger imitation from the masses. And the story will begin again.