Bite Back with Abbey Sharp - Ozempic has Destabilized the Moral Value of Thinness - What Replaces it is Dystopian AF

Episode Date: July 14, 2026

Here’s a run down of what we discussed in today’s episode: Will GLP-1s Kill Diet Culture? Why SkinnyTok Took Over Social Media The Rise of Biohacking & Hyper-Optimization Is Muscle the New Thin? The New Status Symbol in Wellness Culture Why Self-Denial Signals Success The Privilege Behind Modern Wellness Trends Are We Optimizing Away Our Humanity? What Replaces Thinness as Status? The Future of Diet Culture After Ozempic References: https://jewlscholar.mtsu.edu/items/1f46c40c-a9f4-423a-8e06-7c7d12cbd277 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6762156/ Disclaimer: The content in this episode is for educational and entertainment purposes only and is never a substitute for medical advice. If you’re struggling with with your mental or physical health, please work one on one with a health care provider. If you have heard yourself in our discussion today, and are looking for support, contact the free NEDIC helpline at 1-866-NEDIC-20 or go to eatingdisorderhope.com.

That is the part that feels dystopian to me because at its extreme, the endpoint of wellness culture starts to look less like health and more like slowly training ourselves to become emotionally detached, hyper-efficient, chemically regulated machines. Welcome to another episode of Bite Back with Abby Sharp, where I dismantle die culture rules, call out the charlatans spinning the pseudoscience, and health. you achieve food freedom for good. As many of you listening likely know, diet culture has long treated thinness as a lot more than just an objective body type. It has been framed as a marker of discipline, morality, self-control, ambition, even intelligence, explaining why research repeatedly shows that women with thin privilege are given better job and wage opportunities, better health care, more favorable assumptions of competence and intelligence, and they're even more likely to be pardoned for crimes

in court. So whether people realize it consciously or not, thinness has always functioned as a form of social currency. And part of the reason for this is that for a lot of folks, becoming or staying thin is actually hard. Like a lot of very thin people have likely had to restrict themselves, deny pleasure, put time in at the gym, meal prep, and exercise restraint when faced with temptations. Anytime we see someone achieve something that is hard, whether it's graduating with honors, running a marathon, or dropping 15 pounds for high school reunion, we assign those people points in the social and moral hierarchy. But then GLP-1s entered the chat, and the rules of the game completely changed. For the first time in history,

thinness has become more accessible, more transactional, and more pharmacologically democratized. And historically, whenever a signal of status becomes too widely accessible or available, the elites just find another way to move the goalpost. So today I want to dive deep into the question, if thinness is no longer rare enough to signal superiority, what replaces it as the new moral hierarchy. Now, before we dive in, a quick reminder that if you love Biteback, I would really appreciate if you would subscribe and share this episode and also leave me a five-star review on Amazon, Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. It really, really does help me get the word out. All right, friends, let's dive in. So I've heard some folks argue that democratizing

thinness via access to GLP-1s will serve to eradicate down. Diet culture for good. But friends, the multi-billion dollar diet and wellness industry is far too powerful a beast to just shut down. As it has hundreds of time before, diet culture won't disappear. It's simply going to be forced to evolve. And since the birth of the diet drug era began, we've already seen some rapid shifts. The first and most obvious counter movement to the GLP1 boom was a cultural pivot towards achieving thinness the quote hard or natural way. This is classic diet and wellness culture 101, as it pulls from the teachings of the appeal to nature's fallacy where any natural solution is superior to any modern convenience synthesized in a lab.

It also represents an effort to reclaim one's place in the social hierarchy when the Thin' Girl Club has lost its exclusivity. So here, the status symbol shifts from simply being thin to how you got thin. Skinny Talk was the loudest and proudest subculture to own this messaging. So Skinny Talk is not just about having a thin body. It is about becoming and staying thin through discipline, hunger, self-denial, rigid control, and self-deprecating mantras. If you weren't suffering to look hot, you were just, just another lazy fat pig. And this is why so much of the Skinny Talk rhetoric has felt massively moralistic. When Skinny Talk influencers say things like hunger is discipline leaving the body,

or if your stomach is growling, it's working, or discipline over dopamine, it reinforces that diet culture isn't just about bodies. It is about finding your place in the social hierarchy. Another counter-movement in the quest to redesign the hierarchy that we're now seeing emerge right now is the rise of hyper-optimization and biohacking culture. The subtext of biohackers is that thinness is surface level or almost like beginner-level control. To earn a spot at the top of the moral hierarchy, you need total physiological mastery. Q the longevity stacks, the cold plunges, the recovery metrics, the gut microbiome test, the sleep scores, the glucose monitors, and the endless quest to turn back the clock on one's biological age. And honestly, biohacking culture kind of feels like skinny talk for people with disposable income and an Airwain membership.

Like, we've basically gone from skip dessert to be hot to track your REM sleep, dunk yourself in ice water at 5 a.m. and reverse your cellular aging. So the aesthetic and language may be hitting different demographics, but underneath, they're both basically the pursuit of moral superiority through bodily control. But in the female world, that optimization kind of needed a new visual brand identity. Enter the Strong Girl era. Consider Hillary Duff's massively successful, stronger, not smaller campaign with the fitness app ladder that positioned strength training as empowering, pro-health, and basically anti-skinny talk.

And of all the messaging we receive about our body in the media, I was damn happy to see this one coming. We know that muscle mass and strength are directly correlated with long-term health, especially for us women as we age. I also think this is a timely message in response to the extreme muscle loss we are seeing, with rapid weight loss from GLP-1s. So I am not knocking the campaign or Hillary Duff, who I actually think is a pretty good role model for girls. But I do think we need to acknowledge that the strong girl ideal can still demand

an enormous amount of body surveillance and self-optimization from women. Because even though the language has changed from skinny to strong, we're often still being sold a very specific aesthetic. lean, toned, low body fat, visible muscle definition, and a body that still aligns pretty closely with conventional beauty standards. And so for a lot of women, because of genetics, disability, time, money, caregiving responsibilities, hormones, age, or simply having different priorities,

that body may feel even more unattainable than the ultra-thin ideal before it. And yet I can see a lot of reasons why the emphasis on muscle mass in 2026 makes a lot of sense. If thinness can essentially now be achieved pharmacologically with what many may see as very little quote quote effort, muscle must be built the hard way. It takes time, money, recovery, access, leisure, control, and discipline. We also don't have an accessible way to just add muscle unless I guess you're ready to hop on the anabolic steroid train. So in a lot of ways, visible muscle serves as a, quote, quote, cue that you didn't just take the easy way out with the jab. You worked for your body the quote quote hard way. The hallmark of moral superiority. So what do I think might be coming next? Well,

get as comfy as you possibly can because what I'm about to talk about now, is dystopian AF. Throughout generations, status signaling and luxury living has always oscillated between conspicuous excess and conspicuous restraint. If we think of the pre-industrial era when food scarcity was very common, wealth was portrayed through abundance. So think aristocrats dining on lavish feasts with rich fatty foods and larger bodies being in vogue.

But as abundance and access to hyper-palatable food became more common in affluent capitalism-driven societies, the luxury signal flipped, and we essentially started paying more for smaller amounts of food. So instead of a 1,200-calorie super-sized McDonald's meal, luxury is signaled by a low-calorie, $28-air-1 smoothie and raw milk flown in from boutique farms. So in this sense, status is performed through curated deprivation of basic human needs.

I often like to think about it in the context of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which suggests that humans move from basic survival needs like hunger, rest, comfort, and pleasure towards higher order aspirations like esteem, self-actualization, and even transcendence. And what's fascinating is how modern wellness culture increasingly glorifies appearing untouched by those basic needs. Those who have the resources to voluntarily deprive themselves of the things that ordinary people need to survive, like food, rest, convenience, comfort, or pleasure are thought of as being morally superior. And this nicely maps onto the luxury wellness trends of course. plungees and dopamine detoxes and digital minimalism, silent retreats, and 36-hour fasting protocols. These are extreme presentations of self-denial that require an enormous amount of privilege

to perform. When I look at those cultural cues alongside the exponential acceleration of AI technology, I worry that the next big trend in diet and wellness culture is going to be complete. complete transcendence from our seemingly basic biological human needs, where food is seen as mere friction in our day. Meals become interruptions to productivity. Hunger is a low life distraction from body and mind optimization, and having an appetite for really any basic need, whether that's food, rest, pleasure, or sex, is framed as indulgent or weak. It's giving Soilent Green is people that, where the goal is no longer to experience the richness of being human, but simply to keep our bodies as operational and efficient as possible.

And honestly, that is the part that feels dystopian to me, because at its extreme, the endpoint of wellness culture starts to look less like health and more like slowly training ourselves to become emotionally detached, hyper-efficient, chemically regulated machines. Yeah, I know. I think the biggest thing I keep coming back to in all of my research, and let's be honest, my late-night doomsday spirals, is that diet culture is remarkably adaptive.

When one form of superiority becomes too accessible, culture simply invents another. So if GLD-1s like Ozempic destabilized thinness as the ultimate marker of discipline, morality, and worthiness, the hierarchy won't disappear. It's just going to migrate somewhere else. And while I definitely have fears about where some of this is headed, I also have to believe that there will be a counter movement. A movement that pushes back against the idea that our value lies in how efficiently we can suppress our humanity. Something that reminds us that being human is inherently messy and emotional and pleasurable, and that food

is more than fuel, and the rest is not weakness, and that joy, aptite, connection, and even desire are not like glitches in the system to optimize away. So maybe the real rebellion in the future won't be in becoming superhuman. It'll be fully embracing our humanity in a culture increasingly obsessed with becoming machines. And on that note, pour yourself some wine. I'm just kidding. Well, I guess it depends on what time it is for you guys listening right now, but I really do hope that this sparked some food for thought.

So if you enjoyed this, please do not forget to subscribe, leave me a comment, and share this episode with a friend. Signing off with Science and Sass. I'm Abby Sharp. Thanks for listening.