The first time a friend confessed to me the ultimate sneaky secret of 2024, we were enjoying an extended Friday lunch accompanied by wine and a lot of laughter. The meal included all the hallmarks of indulgence, with steak and pudding and an extra drink before we rolled into the weekend. It was a sunny day and my friend – let’s call her Jen – was wearing a sleeveless top that showed off her toned arms. She’s in her mid forties, like me, but much healthier and does lots of weight-training. We’ve known each other for decades and can be honest with each other, no doubt sometimes too honest. So when she told me that she was about to start jabbing herself with weight-loss drugs, I said I thought it was a ridiculous idea. Those drugs are nonsense. Shouldn’t we be kind to our bodies, instead of assailing them with medication? And, anyway, how do we know they’re not dangerous?
I was astounded to hear about Jen because she didn’t fit the profile of the people I associated with these drugs – people with life-threatening obesity, along with Hollywood celebs who keep popping up with hollow cheeks and pursed fish lips. The best known is Ozempic, the version of the semaglutide injection available on prescription from the NHS, while Wegovy is its over-the-counter twin – if you meet requirements. The other drug licensed for sale in the UK is Mounjaro, which works in a similar way.
Two months later, Jen had lost 9kg and been asked to model for some of her employer’s marketing materials. I was thrilled for her, even though I didn’t think she needed to take it. I wondered how she’d keep the weight off, too, as there’s no long-term research into how these drugs will affect our bodies as the years roll by. What happens if you’re locked into shelling out 200-odd quid a month when you’re a pensioner? And with inflation, how much would that cost in 20 years’ time?
As I was writing to congratulate my friend – genuinely happy for her, as I’m well acquainted with the desire to weigh less – I recognised another feeling deep in my gut. Unalloyed envy. I wanted her weight loss for myself. And I wanted it without putting any effort in, just like all the others I see parading their Ozempic success, not to mention those who keep it a secret!
The truth is, I’d wanted the weight-loss jabs as soon as my friend told me that she had them. In fact, nearly every time I’ve read an article about them in the past year, I’ve returned online to see if I could buy them, but am always turned down because my BMI is too low.
Even when I’ve lied to the online questionnaire, you have to upload an image to support the weight you’re claiming to be, and I haven’t got past the gatekeepers. When my friend told me she was buying Mountjaro via a company called Voy, I tried them and was turned down.
Anyone trying to buy these drugs must have a BMI of 30 or over, or 27.5 those with South Asians backgrounds, along with a few hundred pounds a month to pay for them. To prove your size, you must submit photos to the retailer, which include high-street pharmacies like Boots and Superdrug, and online health retailers such as Numan and Voy.
I know these drugs are hailed as life-changing, but from my perspective it seems like a big fat-jab lottery based on whether you tip the scales or look flabby enough at the right moment. At the beginning of 2024, I was pushing 30, but I’ve worked to get my BMI down to 24. I feel like I have no chance of getting the jabs now.
For people who are overweight, possibly obese, but not suffering from associated illnesses, it’s really a game of chance in terms of access, a bit like personal trainers, fancy gyms, and Botox. I’d spent weeks off booze and sugar to lose a measly few kilos, and here’s Jen 13kg – an astonishing 15 per cent of her previous body weight – down in just three months.
At present, there are two weight-loss injections approved for general sale in the UK, Mounjaro and Wegovy. Both of these cost around the same: retailers are showing them for around £225 a month at the moment, but they are usually discounted.
Jen spent £565 over four months and said she stopped easily but feels great knowing it’s always there if she feels like she needs it. She did feel nauseous at first, which sounds awful, but says this soon passed.
I forgot about it for a while. But in the past few months, more women have confided in me that they’ve ordered the jab. A year ago, it seemed that everywhere you looked, a celebrity was showing off their new skinny look, as if they’d achieved it via green juice and regular exercise.
Just as with plastic surgery or any other kind of tweakments, some of them look great but others take it too far. But now, and it really seems like this happened overnight, it’s my own friends who are confiding in me about their guilty jab habits, and people on the school run and at the post office, rather than the red carpet, flaunting their miraculous, sudden weight loss.
It’s comically easy to tell who’s keeping it a secret. They’re the women who show up with a speedy and fairly dramatic weight loss, but when you greet them with the polite, “You look wonderful. How are you?”, they don’t boast about their hardcore regime, detail their Huel schedule, or expound the finer details of their time-restricted eating pattern. Nope. This lot just say thank you and close the topic down. I don’t blame them. The size of their body or how they got there is nobody’s business apart from the friends they want to share it with. We are all so quick to judge and condemn.
But people are usually proud of their achievements and yet they feel shame or that they should hide these jabs, or at least hide them from their more judgemental friends. I think this is why I was initially against them. I’m not in favour of over-medicalising things in general, and I thought it a step back that women feel they have to hide whatever approach they’ve used to make them feel better about their bodies. They know losing weight isn’t going to solve all their problems, but feeling good about your body can make it easier to tackle the rest.
The odd thing is, these weight-loss jabs seem to retrain our brains in just the same way that a consistent healthy eating plan does. I don’t mean starving yourself, but removing the triggers that make you eat more, and eat in ways that could be bad for your long-term health. When I’ve managed to follow a low-sugar diet for a month or more, it has definitely impacted what my brain seems to want to eat long term. In other words, it’s been a natural appetite suppressant – but boy, am I bitter that I had to do it the hard way!
