GLP-1s are inescapable online. Here's why that matters
GLP-1 weight-loss drugs have flooded social media, TV, and the wider internet—and today, glp1s are inescapable online for anyone scrolling, streaming, or recovering from an eating disorder. Clinicians, surveys, and new research warn that billion-dollar marketing, recommendation algorithms, and revived diet culture are pushing harmful messaging directly to vulnerable users.
Kate Gombach recently marked four years in recovery from an eating disorder—a milestone that once felt impossible for the 35-year-old, who grew up during the early-2000s "heroin chic" era when celebrities like Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie dominated tabloids. After treatment at the Eating Recovery Center, she had mostly learned to tune out triggers. Then appetite-suppressing GLP-1s arrived, and bodies began shrinking across her feeds in ways that feel eerily familiar.
Key Takeaways
- Pharma giants Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly spent $700 million marketing GLP-1 drugs in the first nine months of 2025 alone, per Reuters, making weight-loss content nearly impossible to avoid.
- Surveys from Equip and NEDA found adults and clinicians linking GLP-1 advertising to body-image distress and weekly conversations about rising disordered eating behaviors.
- Research in JAMA Psychiatry and a 2024 University of Melbourne TikTok study suggest people with eating disorder histories may use—or be served—more harmful weight-loss content online.
- GLP-1 marketers have co-opted recovery language like "food noise" and "take control," blurring the line between wellness advice and restrictive eating culture.
- Recovery experts recommend curating feeds, monitoring emotional responses to scrolling, and considering whether staying online is worth the relapse risk.
How did we go from body positivity to GLP-1 feeds everywhere?
The cultural whiplash is part of what makes this moment feel so disorienting. Diet culture fell out of favor in the late 2010s, then influencers pitching wellness optimization and thinness-as-virtue messaging helped bring it roaring back. Creators who once championed body positivity or neutrality began weight-loss journeys—sometimes with little explanation or early disclosure of paid partnerships, Gombach told Mashable.
She saw bodies shrinking across celebrities and social feeds, even as she pruned accounts and actively disliked weight-loss ads on Instagram and TikTok. Marketing for semaglutide drugs still appeared on those platforms, on television, and across the wider internet. For a deeper look at how digital culture keeps reinventing old pressures, explore our Nostalgia: Then & Now coverage—where yesterday's tabloid thinness and today's GLP-1 glam often rhyme.
"It's not easy, and it's not fun, but I'm trying to push through it, maintain my recovery, and hold on to my beliefs, despite a lot of people around me kind of switching," Gombach said.
Why is GLP-1 marketing so hard to avoid online?
Scale is one answer. In just the first nine months of 2025, Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly spent $700 million marketing their GLP-1 medications—Wegovy and Ozempic, and Zepbound and Mounjaro, respectively—according to Reuters. That advertising rush has made weight-loss content inescapable for many users and may help explain why Americans are flocking to online black markets for Eli Lilly's retatrutide, a drug not yet approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
Algorithms do the rest. Dr. Blair Burnette, an assistant professor at Michigan State University and principal investigator of the eating- and body-image-focused ARISE Lab, said patients can unintentionally train feeds to serve more GLP-1 content simply by pausing on a video. Equip survey participants also reported that actively seeking body-positive content sometimes led to seeing more fitness, body transformation, and restrictive eating posts instead.
Dr. Elizabeth Wassenaar, regional medical director of the Eating Recovery Center, put it bluntly: "The algorithm likely curates content that gets more interaction, and when people are engaged in a mental illness, the content that gets more interaction reinforces that mental illness."
What does the research say about social media and eating disorders?
Earlier this year, eating disorder care company Equip surveyed 828 adults about how social media influenced their body image. Several respondents named GLP-1 ads unprompted as a distinct source of distress. A recent survey by the National Eating Disorders Association found the same pattern: clinicians reported having weekly conversations with patients about GLP-1 advertising and increased disordered eating behaviors.
New research published in JAMA Psychiatry suggests GLP-1 use may be higher among people with eating disorders compared to the general population. Study authors wrote that some people might use GLP-1 drugs to achieve rapid food restriction and weight loss.
A 2024 TikTok algorithm study by researchers at the University of Melbourne found that users with a history of disordered eating were served more videos featuring "toxic" eating disorder content than those without prior struggles. Burnette, who was not involved in that study, called the findings "extremely disturbing." "It was very clear that the people who were struggling were getting delivered more harmful content," she said.
Why does GLP-1 advertising sound like recovery talk?
Jessica Scheer, CEO of the National Eating Disorders Association, noted that eating disorder content readily "shapeshifts" into whatever nutrition and wellness trends dominate the internet—clean eating, hot girl walks, and now GLP-1 influencers lumped in with wellness advice accounts. Advertising phrases like "take control of your health" mirror the mindset of many people experiencing disordered eating habits.
The diet industry has also co-opted recovery language. GLP-1 ads often promise to quiet "food noise"—incessant rumination on hunger and eating—which weight inclusivity advocate Sharon Maxwell said is one of the most common struggles among people with eating disorders. "People with eating disorders are very susceptible," Maxwell said. "It's a great business model."
Maxwell, who once collaborated with Meta's moderation team on better age-gating of eating disorder content, said human safety teams have been reconfigured or shrunk—and creators they used to work alongside have pivoted to sponsored GLP-1 posts.
How can people in recovery protect themselves online?
Gombach, now a clinical mental health counselor specializing in eating disorder care, leans on acceptance and commitment therapy practices: affirming that triggering content is not for her, focusing on "clarity of intention" about who profits from insecurity, and unfollowing creators who announce GLP-1 use—even though harmful marketing still slips through ad settings.
Dr. Erin Parks, co-founder and chief clinical officer of Equip, does not discourage patients from quitting social media entirely if it helps. She compares endless scrolling in recovery to "attempting not to drink but spending all their time in a bar." She recommends curating feeds with a clinician when possible and tracking emotional responses before, during, and after scrolling.
Maxwell has scaled back their own time online. Both Maxwell and Gombach acknowledge the temptation of GLP-1s, but insist the appeal is often the cultural reward of a smaller body—not the medicine itself. If you feel like you'd like to talk to someone about your eating behavior, text "NEDA" to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 or visit the National Eating Disorders Association website for more information.