When DMV native and photographer Brigette Squire, developed gestational diabetes during her pregnancy with her first child more than 12 years ago, she feared the possibility of her condition growing into full-blown diabetes later in life. Now, at 35, after recent warnings about her weight, Squire’s primary care physician recommended an injection often used to treat patients with diabetes: Ozempic.
Despite her apprehension, Squire has started taking Ozempic to avoid a diabetes diagnosis, assist in weight loss and promote a healthier lifestyle overall.
“My goal really wasn’t, like other people’s goals, to lose an extreme amount of weight. I still like my curves and I didn’t [aim] to be super skinny,” said Squire. “I just wanted to be healthy, and I was mostly concerned about getting full-on diabetes, so that’s really why I decided to take it.”
Although the popular brand of Semaglutide injections known as Ozempic has become widely popular due to side effects of weight loss, the medicine was initially approved to treat patients with type 2 diabetes.
While physicians like Squire’s recommend the medicine to help patients struggling with their weight, some patients face negative comments, coined as “Ozempic shaming” for taking the medication to reach weight loss goals instead of relying on exercise or diet.
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“Once you start looking into this, there’s a lot of nonsense reporting around Ozempic, let me be frank with you. It’s kind of an extension of fat shaming, right? Fat shaming is the last kind of thing that is okay to do, that’s actually wrong,” argued Tommy Zondo, 53, who has been taking the Ozempic injections for a year and a half.
According to the World Health Obesity Federation, weight stigma is defined as: “The discriminatory acts and ideologies targeted towards individuals because of their weight and size.” Similarly, “weight bias refers to the negative ideologies associated with obesity.”
While some contend that people should be capable of maintaining a healthy weight on their own accord, without medications, organizations like the American Medical Association recognize obesity as a disease involving metabolic, genetic, and behavioral aspects that require medical support.
Further, a significant part of the controversy behind the medication is the growing concern that people seeking Ozempic for weight loss purposes are leaving a scarce supply for type 2 diabetics who are in dire need of the prescription.
However, Zondo, a local accountant, called bluff on that accusation, seeing an underlying bias toward those facing overweight and obesity as a cause of the backlash.
“You can fat shame people in meetings and various social spaces, and it’s alright, and everyone just has a good old laugh. And now that there’s Ozempic, the same people that are usually fat shaming, they don’t like [us having access to it], so it’s just getting all twisted,” Zondo told The Informer.
Beyond testimonies, medical research and studies show supporting evidence behind Zondo’s claims. A study conducted by Deborah Carr and Michael A. Friedman MA, “Is obesity stigmatizing? Body weight, perceived discrimination, and psychological well-being in the United States,” highlighted that those persons with a BMI of 35 or higher are more likely to undergo employment and institutional discrimination.
The pervasiveness of stigma and discrimination obesity have grown so consequential that organizations and health advocates like the National Council on Aging (NCOA) and the National Consumers League (NCL) introduced the Obesity Bill of Rights earlier this year in an effort to protect the autonomy and dignity of those battling the disease.
“Obesity is not a lifestyle problem or a failure of willpower. It is a chronic disease as serious and potentially deadly as diabetes, heart disease, and certain cancers,” the NCL said in a statement. “Yet, people with obesity are treated differently than those with any other disease. Many are fat-shamed and discriminated against for having obesity, and very few receive a formal diagnosis or counseling from their physicians.”
Barriers of Accessibility to Ozempic
While Ozempics begets several health benefits, it also comes at quite the cost for those interested.
Ozempic ranges anywhere with tales from ranging $1,000 a month uninsured, to $200 and $300 dollars monthly, to copays as little as $10.
However, many patients recount the pushback from insurers on requested prescriptions, as many health insurance plans don’t cover Ozempic for weight loss, since the medication is currently only FDA-approved for type 2 diabetes treatment.
Medicare, for example, does not provide coverage for medications prescribed for weight loss. Simultaneously, in many states, Medicaid programs cover Ozempic for type 2 diabetes treatment, but with stringent requirements for medication approval, including quantity limits and step therapy, with programs varying by state.
Squire has been grateful to be approved for coverage, as she explained the extensive process to show ample pieces of proof–including her gradual weight gain, sugar levels, and underlying health concerns— before her insurance decided to greenlight the prescription.
Likewise, Zondo was almost on the brink of denial for his treatment, as he felt as though he had to be sick with full-on diabetes for his insurance company to approve the prescription.
With coverage, his insurance helps cut monthly Ozempic costs down to roughly $25 a month. Without insurance, he would be charged closer to nearly $1,000, which he said he was ultimately willing and financially able to pay. However, he said he empathizes with diabetic patients who cannot front the expenses for a medication that could greatly improve their health.
“I was lucky to get it, and even if I wasn’t lucky, I was able to afford it,” Zondo said. “But insurance companies are really full of it right now. They’re keeping a lot of people who need this drug from getting it because it’s expensive, [and] because they’re going to lose a lot of money [the more prescriptions they approve for coverage.”