Fat shaming has a new question: Why don’t you just take the shot?

A woman can carry the stigma of extra weight for 30 years, lose 40 pounds, and watch it evaporate. Same woman. Same brain. Same résumé. Suddenly people listen. Which tells you it was never about her at all.

It was about the rest of us. And it’s been costing her the whole time.

Just ask Valerie Hillstad-Fliss. At 56, the Portland-area senior director of human resources for a tech company wanted to lose weight but didn’t think she’d try GLP-1s because her insurance didn’t cover them. Her weight had crept up over the years, and rheumatoid arthritis made her joints ache and her energy fade. 

After watching the “metamorphosis” of a friend and a co-worker on the meds, she decided to give it a go. “We all kind of have the same story of being in our 50s and perimenopausal,” she said. “It’s harder to lose weight on your own, even if we all know the best way is diet and exercise. But hormone imbalance is real. Talking with them, I felt not alone in my own journey.”

Nine months later, she’s lost 40 pounds, her joints feel better, her energy is up, and her clothes fit well again. Now she’s the one inspiring co-workers to try the meds, and she’s even convinced her company to include GLP-1s in its medical program. 

Hillstad-Fliss’s story is a best-case scenario. According to Gallup, 11% of American adults are reportedly taking a GLP-1 for weight loss, up from just 3% in 2024, and 15% report having taken the meds at some point. That adds up to a lot of women who have lived in larger bodies for years or decades and suddenly find they’re significantly thinner. And something they’re discovering in the process is that society responds to them in new ways now. “I actually do feel like I’m being treated differently,” Hillstad-Fliss noted.

Virginia Sole-Smith isn’t surprised. She’s the author of the bestselling book Fat Talk and co-host of “Burnt Toast,” a newsletter and podcast on body liberation. “When you live in such a fatphobic culture as we do, there’s no question that it is easier to be a thin person in how you move through the world,” she said. 

For women who lose significant weight, “Nothing about your worth has changed a bit, and yet you’re perceived differently, and I think that is really disorienting and destabilizing.” 

Is Fat a Choice Now?

One result of the media storm around GLP-1s is the growing perception that anyone can be thin now if they want—and can afford the meds. This repositions fat as a choice, or thinness as an economic privilege, both of which can carry their own moral judgments. “A lot of people are feeling much more activated around weight loss, and feeling more of a pull, or that a lower, smaller body size is more accessible now,” said Corinne Fay, who writes a newsletter about clothes called Big Undies and co-hosts the “Burnt Toast” podcast with Sole-Smith. 

But, she noted, GLP-1s aren’t for everyone—and don’t work the same for every person. Reddit houses stacks of testimonies from people who didn’t lose weight on the meds, couldn’t manage the side effects, or lost weight then gained it all back once they went off. Research suggests as many as 10%-30% of users won’t lose significant weight on the drugs, while one clinical trial extension found participants regained an average of about two-thirds of their weight lost within a year of stopping the meds and the study’s lifestyle intervention. 

Weight Bias Is Real—and It Costs Women a Lot

Studies show that heavier women in the U.S. often earn less, work less, are promoted less, are less likely to be married or live with a significant other, and may have worse health outcomes and experience worse treatment from healthcare providers. 

It’s hard to put a number on the “weight tax,” but a 2023 analysis found that college-educated women classified as obese (defined as having a BMI of 30 or higher), aged 25 to 54, earned 12%-19% less than their non-obese colleagues in full-time jobs. It can also cost an obese woman significantly more to live in the U.S.—close to $5,000 a year, as far back as 2010, considering a range of medical, work, and personal costs. And that’s not to mention plus-size clothing, furniture, and travel accommodations.

And for women over 50, the financial gap is striking—a 2018 study found that obese women aged 51 to 64 had almost 30% lower household income and 47.5% lower net worth than those of normal weight. Yet it’s typical for women to gain fat mass and lose lean mass during menopause, as the Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation (SWAN) reminds us.

Internalizing the Stigma

Heavier people can also face documented stereotypes—that they’re lazy, unsuccessful, unintelligent, or lacking in self-discipline and willpower—which can negatively impact a person’s mental and physical health. 

Elena Levin, a 49-year-old special education teacher from the Bay Area, said she’s struggled with her weight for most of her life. She realized that the extra weight, which also started shifting to her midriff with hormone changes, was impacting her self-image. “I felt like my being heavy showed the world that I had poor willpower.”

Now that she’s lost 50 pounds, Levin said, “I can’t tell you how many people, when they see me, say, ‘Wow, I can’t believe how great you look.’ And the rational side of me knows I looked great before, but the amount of attention that I’ve gotten for this has been obviously extremely flattering.”

She’s not alone. “In my role, I’m in front of the executive team, I’m in front of employee managers, I’m in front of employees all the time, and I do feel like people notice me more and are listening to me more,” Hillstad-Fliss said. “I think my age as well as my weight were a factor in how people viewed and treated me. I live in an area where people are very outdoorsy and fit … young and fit is regarded more.” But, she added, it may also be that her newfound confidence is inspiring new reactions. “Maybe I’m more comfortable and I’m exuding that, and then I’m getting it back from them in their engagement with me.”

It’s probably a bit of both. Sole-Smith explained the dynamic: “It’s easier to feel confident because the world’s being nicer to you, because you’re playing the game the right way now. It doesn’t mean it’s a good game. It doesn’t mean that you actually are better now. It just means it’s exhausting to live under the onslaught of phobia. And getting a break from it? Yeah, probably feels really good.”

“Even if you’re now benefiting from your thin privilege, it’s really upsetting to see how bad it is, to notice the difference,” Sole-Smith said. “It just feels like, wow, the world’s a terrible place.” 

Thin Doesn’t Fix It

“We’re so told that weight loss will fix everything, that we will be happier and healthier in every aspect of our lives if we can just conquer this one number,” Sole-Smith said. “And I think it’s really common for folks to go through that process and not be happier.” It can make certain aspects of life easier, she said, but “It doesn’t fix everything.” 

No—weight loss doesn’t fix the culture that decrees how women should look in the first place, or the society that treats them differently based on their size. 

It just gives that society a new question for everyone else: Why don’t you just take the shot?