Ozempic, the weight loss medication that diminishes one’s sense of hunger, has been used as a simple and yet effective treatment for obesity. There is debate on whether the use of drugs to combat weight gain is healthy, or should be pushed back against by simply eating better and engaging in regular exercise. Now, though, a certain brand of Ozempic users is complicating the discussion. People, particularly the young, are starting to use Ozempic to carve out the ideal beach bod.

But the risks to this aren’t benign, according to a report by the New York Post.

Using Ozempic or other weight loss drugs without a proper prescription can be dangerous. Per the Post:

“Drugs including Ozempic and Wegovy should only be used by people prescribed them for obesity or diabetes,” Stephen Powis — the national medical director of NHS England, the country’s publicly funded healthcare system — urged last week at a conference in Manchester.

“I’m worried about reports that people are misusing them — they are not intended as a quick fix for people trying to get ‘beach body ready,’” added Powis, per The Times of London.

Dangers of taking Ozempic to get ‘beach body ready’ revealed (nypost.com)

Body image issues affect both women and men, with Instagram-perfect pictures of bikini-clad girls or ripped gym goers causing young people to question their own physiques. Now, they’re using drugs to chisel their bodies to match what they see online. Another article from the Post notes how Ozempic use seems to be correlated with a sudden increase in “risky behavior,” such as gambling.

Social media and pornography are the most likely culprits for the rise in body dysmorphia. We’ve been inundated with a curated flow of exaggerated body forms; the Kardashians exemplify this phenom on the female side with “gym-fluencers” and other male celebrities and online personalities leading men to believe that without their specific workout routines or dieting habits, they’re destined to remain flabby and unimpressive for life.

There is, of course, absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to get fit and improve one’s health. Obesity is an American health crisis, and needs to be mitigated. But what happens when these impossible beauty standards cause perfectly healthy people to do harm to themselves just to match a glorified online appearance?

Pornography, in addition, presents a harmfully unrealistic vision of sexuality and the human body. Another New York Post article highlights the disturbing rise in surgeries on genitalia to match what youngsters encounter through online porn.

And as Freya India importantly points out, pornography isn’t limited to explicit websites, but is widespread all across social media apps. In fact, X just officially allowed explicit content on its site, provided that it’s officially tagged as such. India writes,

TikTok is serving up sex videos to minors and promoting sites like OnlyFans. The gaming platform Twitch is exposing kids to explicit live-streams. Ads for “AI sex workers” are all over Instagram, some featuring kids’ TV characters like SpongeBob and the Cookie Monster. And there’s also this sort of “soft-porn” now that pervades everything. Pretty much every category of content that kids could stumble across, from beauty trends to TikTok dances to fitness pages, is now pornified or sexualised in some way for clicks.

-Freya India, The Problem With Everything Being Pornified (freyaindia.co.uk)

It isn’t the fault of Gen Z that they’re depending on stuff like Ozempic to try and refashion their bodies. Big Tech’s addictive apps are fueling the fire and making all of this possible. Regulation on prescription seems like an important step to take, but also an honest look at how the digital wasteland is filling kids and young adults with impossible dreams that will only hurt them if they try to force them into reality.