So your friend lost 60 pounds and seems happy. Do you say anything?
Body compliments in the Ozempic age.
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I caught this reader question nestled in the NYT “Social Qs” column by Philip Galanes the other day:
Weight Loss Without Comment? It’s Possible.
Reader: Several friends have lost noticeable amounts of weight. I am sure it is with the help of semaglutide drugs. I’m happy for them. Normally, I would compliment them on how great they look, but I am hesitant because they may not want to acknowledge that they didn’t achieve this on their own (yay, me!) but had to rely on drugs (aw, I lack self-control). Still, it’s impossible to ignore the improvement in their appearance. What should I do?Philip: I know that you’re trying to be a good friend, but I take exception with a few of your assumptions: You don’t, in fact, know that your friends are taking semaglutide, nor do you know that they’re taking it solely for weight loss. (Drugs containing semaglutide are prescribed for several medical conditions.) You also seem a bit judgmental about weight: It doesn’t all boil down to self-control.
Weight is a freighted issue in our culture. So, here’s my suggestion: If your friends haven’t told you they are taking these drugs or trying to lose weight, keep quiet about it. Feel free to tell them they look well! But why wade into a sensitive subject simply because you find it “impossible to ignore”? I am confident that you can.
Good for Philip for that response; the reader is overconfident and clearly has an inaccurate and mean-spirited bias against weight-loss meds1. I’ve written before about the part of his answer I typically tend to agree with: If you don’t know for sure that someone’s trying to lose weight, best to say nothing.
But what is already happening to some people, and what is likely to keep happening as weight loss meds advance, is not typical. Now, it’s not entirely out of the question that you could encounter, oh, half a dozen people in half a year who are significantly smaller than before. That would not have been likely even a few years ago, and while I think the “Everyone is on Ozempic except me!” tone of some recent coverage is overblown, the next generation of drugs that come in pill form (which could be cheaper) is not something to ignore2. We probably will see more people we know losing a lot of weight in the not-so-distant future.
That makes me wonder anew about what I’d say to them or not. Even though I agree it’s right to stay quiet from an assumptions standpoint (you don’t know if they lost weight from an eating disorder, an illness, depression, etc.), I can’t shake the feeling that many of us will be having catch-up coffees with friends who are sitting there intentionally, healthily, and happily 60-plus pounds lighter, saying nothing about their astonishing and obvious weight loss because we’re afraid of saying the wrong thing. This hypothetical but not unlikely interpersonal dynamic is safe, yes, but it’s also kind of bizarre. Is it still the right thing to do?