Ozempic, Wegovy, Ro: GLP-1 ads are taking over social media

Kate Gombach recently celebrated four years in recovery from an eating disorder. Such a milestone once felt impossible for the 35-year-old who recalls growing up at the height of "heroin chic," a time in the early aughts when celebrities like Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie appeared in tabloids looking extremely thin. "I didn't realize that living the way I'm living now was even an option for me," Gombach tells Mashable. "I thought trying to shrink my body constantly was what I had to do because of the body that I was born in." Since Gombach completed treatment at the Eating Recovery Center, she'd mostly been able to tune out the kind of messaging and advertising that typically triggered her disordered eating. But over the past several months, that became much harder thanks to one of the most popular medications of the 21st century: appetite- and hunger-suppressing GLP-1s. Suddenly, Gombach saw bodies shrinking everywhere she looked, particularly amongst celebrities and on social media. Creators who once championed body positivity or neutrality began weight-loss journeys with little explanation or initial disclosure about paid partnerships and sponsored content, Gombach witnessed. R

Jul 9, 2026 → Jul 10, 2026