When friends start shrinking on Ozempic, it’s easy to feel not thin enough. Why comparison hits so hard, and how to come back to pride in the body that carries you.
I want to talk about something I’ve been noticing, first in my own life and then in almost every conversation I have with women right now.
It starts small. A friend at brunch who takes three bites and says she’s just not that hungry anymore. A mom at school pickup whose jeans are suddenly hanging off her. The group chat where someone mentions, half joking, that she “started a little something.” Then one day you look around the room and realize that nearly everyone you know is getting smaller. Some of them so small that their bodies start to look like they belong to someone much younger than the life they’re living.
Nobody said anything to you. Nobody told you that you needed to change. But you catch your reflection in the car window on the way home, and something in you has quietly shifted. You don’t feel fit enough. You don’t feel attractive enough. You’re doing math about your own body that you never agreed to start doing.
If that’s you, I want you to know two things before we go any further. You are not shallow for feeling this. And you are not stuck with it.
Is this a suburbs thing, an American thing, or something bigger?
It’s the question I keep hearing, and one I’ve asked myself: is this just where we live?
The honest answer is that it’s bigger than any one zip code, and it follows money more than it follows a map.
The numbers have moved fast. In late 2025, KFF found that about one in eight American adults were currently taking a GLP-1 medication like Ozempic, Wegovy or Zepbound, double the share from a year and a half earlier, and women were more likely than men to be on one. Many of those people take them for exactly what they were designed for: diabetes, heart health, obesity. I want to be really clear that this piece is not about them. A medication your doctor prescribed for your health is not a character question.
What’s newer is who else is using them. A large study of US medical records in the journal Obesity found that prescriptions to adults with no apparent approved reason grew more than thirteenfold between 2021 and 2025, and about a third of those people had a BMI in the normal range. The pattern leaned toward people who are more financially comfortable and privately insured.
It isn’t only an American story, either. In the UK, an analysis of more than 110,000 private prescriptions found that roughly four in five went to women, uptake peaked between ages 30 and 49, and use was higher in wealthier areas even though those areas have less obesity. Researchers in Brazil have written that using these drugs for slimness is quietly redefining what a “responsible” body looks like, and they warn against shaming the people who use them, because the pressure is cultural, not personal.
So if it feels like the suburbs, that’s not your imagination. Suburbs gather people of similar income and similar life stage into the same rooms: the same school gym, the same Pilates studio, the same Saturday sidelines. When a trend follows money, it shows up there first and all at once. But what you’re seeing is a cultural shift, not a local quirk. We spent a decade hearing that every body was welcome, and in about two years, thin quietly became something you could order.
Why it gets under your skin, even when you know better
Here’s what I find reassuring about the research, strange as that sounds: the way you’re reacting is exactly how humans are built.
Back in the 1950s, the psychologist Leon Festinger described our deep drive to size ourselves up against the people around us, a drive that gets stronger when we feel unsure of where we stand. Decades later, a meta-analysis of 156 studies found that comparing our appearance to others is reliably linked to feeling worse about our bodies, and that the link is stronger for women than for men.
And here’s the part that explains why this moment stings so much. In one study of university women, comparing themselves to peers they actually knew was tied to more body dissatisfaction than comparing themselves to models or celebrities. We’ve gotten pretty good at rolling our eyes at a magazine cover. It’s much harder to roll your eyes at your best friend, your sister in law, or the woman next to you at spin class.
The younger part of you who is watching
Sometimes the reaction is bigger than the moment. You notice a friend’s new collarbones and suddenly you’re thirteen again, in a dressing room, or at a family dinner where someone commented on your plate.
That’s not you being dramatic. In therapy we often talk about parts: the younger versions of us who learned, a long time ago, that love or safety or belonging depended on how we looked. When everyone around you is shrinking, that younger part gets loud. She’s scanning the room the way she learned to, asking the questions she has always asked. Am I still okay? Will I still belong?
If that’s what’s happening for you, that’s okay. She isn’t the problem. She’s just been left in charge of a decision that belongs to the adult you.
Coming back to your adult self
I’ll be honest with you, because I’d want you to be honest with me. I’ve felt the pull too. Watching women around me change, I caught myself wondering whether I should be doing the same. What brought me back was a simple, stubborn truth about my own life: a strong body is what serves me best. I want a body that can carry what my days ask of it, stay present through long hours with the people who count on me, and keep moving for a long time. That’s the body I’m choosing to build.
That’s what coming back to your adult self looks like in real life. Not shaming the younger part for being scared. Turning toward her the way you would with a child who’s upset, and telling her: I see you. I know why you’re worried. I’ve got this now. You’re safe, and you don’t have to earn your place by getting smaller.
The adult you gets to ask better questions than the younger one can. Not “how do I look next to her?” but “what do I want my body to be able to do in ten years? What does taking care of myself actually look like, for me?”
Sometimes the answer includes a real conversation with your doctor about your health, and that’s a grown up decision that belongs to you. What I want for you is that the choice gets made by the woman you are now, with good information and a lot of care, and not by the thirteen year old in the dressing room.
Pride in the body that carries you
There’s a small, lovely line of research I come back to often. Psychologist Jessica Alleva and her colleagues created a writing program called Expand Your Horizon. Women who were unhappy with their bodies spent three short sessions, about fifteen minutes each, writing about what their bodies can do and why that matters to them. Nothing about how they look. Afterward, they felt better about their bodies, including their appearance, and saw themselves less as something to be judged. The shift held a month later.
That tells me something hopeful. You don’t have to love how your body looks this week to start feeling proud of it. You can begin with what it does.
So tonight, or this weekend, try this. Grab a notebook and write for fifteen minutes about everything your body did for you this week. It carried you through a hard meeting. It held someone you love. It walked you home in the cold. It healed a cut you already forgot about. It woke up, again. Write it like a thank you note, not a report card.
A few other things help too. Notice when your chest tightens while you scroll, and give yourself permission to mute accounts, even ones that belong to people you like. You can love someone without needing a daily view of their body. When the comparison comes up with a friend, try getting curious instead of going quiet: most women are feeling some version of this, and saying it out loud tends to shrink the shame instead of you. And move your body for how it feels, not how it looks. Strength, breath, the walk that clears your head.
If you want help with this
Some of this you can do on your own, with a notebook and a little honesty. Some of it needs company, especially when that younger part has been running things for a long time.
At Marra, the first step is a free 15 minute consultation with our intake team. You tell them what’s going on, and they help you find the therapist here who fits. If nobody here is right for you, we’ll tell you that and point you somewhere better. We’re in River West and see clients online anywhere in Illinois, and you can meet our therapists before you commit to anything at all. When you’re ready, Book a Consultation.
You don’t need a crisis to deserve support. Feeling a little less at home in your own body lately is plenty.
If thoughts about food, weight or your body have started taking over your days, you deserve specialized care, and the National Alliance for Eating Disorders helpline at (866) 662-1235 is a good place to start. If you’re having thoughts of harming yourself, please contact the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988. It’s free, confidential, and available 24 hours a day.
