The Serena Williams Weight Loss Jab Ad Doesn’t Feel Right

39 time tennis championship winner, Serena Williams came under some fire this week after an ad she appeared in during Super Bowl Sunday left viewers less than impressed.

The ad in which she appeared in was for a GLP-1 weight loss injection from the Telehealth provider RO. In the commercial, Williams shows how easy it is to use, while mentioning the 34lbs that she has lost while taking the GLP-1, saying “I am healthier on Row, supported on RO”.

 

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Williams had previously said that she began using this weight loss jab after she was struggling to lose weight after having her second child, and saw this as a great way to transform her body.

And while Williams might be feeling great, users online found this endorsement to be unsettling and a step backwards towards the weight loss culture of the 2000 and 2010s.

Some thought this partnership was slightly too coincidental, considering William’s husband Nexi Ohanian is an investor in this telehealth company. They felt that this was just a payout for Williams with little regard for the effects that this commercial might have on how women perceive their healthy body.

Not only that, but mant were quite shocked to see Williams promote something like this, especially since she is a role model for strength and showing what a healthy and athletic body looks like. In a time where slimness was seen as the ultimate status, Williams broke barriers around the stigma that the only healthy and strong body was a skinny one.

 

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Others online found that Williams’ message was quite negative and damaging towards new mothers, pushing the narrative that losing weight is the main priority for mothers after giving birth.

The disappointment isn’t just about Serena Williams. It’s about what her involvement represents – because this isn’t just one isolated campaign; it’s part of a bigger cultural shift. These GLP-1s, which were once only prescribed for diabetes, are now front and centre of weight loss in the celeb and influencer world.

GLP-1s like Ozempic and Mounjaro were created to help manage those with type 2 diabetes, and while these drugs are incredibly effective and important for those with type 2, the marketing of these drugs as a quick fix weight loss has changed the drugs’ use and had led us back to this cultural ideal that slim is superior.

This market is only continuing to grow, slowly becoming a multimillion-euro industry – and that’s without including the amount spent on those with type 2.

While the Irish industry is slightly more regulated, Boots in the UK have a weight loss programme that uses these drugs which users can simply sign up to online.

This quick sign up can be damaging to those who don’t truly need this drug, with more and more celebrities with perfect healthy bodies using the drug and openly speaking about it on social media and interviews.

@danni.duncan_ Hear me out….. How and what people choose to do with their own bodies is their business. I have my opinions on oxempic and other fat loss injections and I’m not afraid to say what I think. We’ve literally come no where from the 90s, and people are still looking for quick fixes no matter the long term consequences. However – for one of the most decorated female athletes to not only take it but to now PROMOTE it and not only that get PAID for it – is so disappointing. My almost 7 year old daughter plays tennis – and she’s watched Serena on the TV. She asks about her, we talk about how strong she is, how hard she’s worked to get to where she is. Her body is her tool. Her body not only has gotten her to where she is today – but it’s also birthed a child. Her body is amazing. Girls everywhere look up to her. Girls everywhere could now be impacted. That if this woman body isn’t good enough, if SHE of all people needs to inject herself to look a certain way – what hope does anyone else have. Fuck it’s hard being a parent in this day and age – to protect them from what is so openly allowed. We’ve come to a point where injecting yourself to lose fat is now marketed. What the fuck has happened. It’s like putting Kate Moss on the cover – anorexic and calling her perfect. It’s damaging – it was damaging then. And it’s damaging now. Hard work – you’d think she’d know all about it right. Consistency. You’d think she’d know all about it. Health……you’d think. Disappointing – and reiterates my job will be never ending – I will not stop until I know I have helped women learn to live without this obsession. . . . . #serenawilliams #oxempic #fatlossdrugs #ro #fatlosscoach ♬ original sound – Danni Duncan

Using this drug simply for weight loss is becoming too normalised and can have harmful effects. With comments being thrown around on social media about wanting to have so called “Ozempic allegations” and trends that celebrate slimness, it’s understanding why having celebs like Williams promoting these weight loss drugs can be damaging to teenage girls and women.

Some may have looked up to Willians before and felt empowered, healthy and strong for having the same body type, but now after this endorsement, it could leave them wanting to take this drug when there is no medical reason to.

Those who can’t get their hands on the drug may even end up down an incredibly serious route of developing an eating disorder as they try to keep up with the look that these public figures have. This can have serious impacts on their health and lead to a place where they become unhealthy… when they never were before.

The endorsements feed the mindset that losing weight is the only goal. We’ll get to a place where we don’t know where to draw a line at what being healthy is, and we’ll continue to use these jabs or extreme diets to achieve this level of thinness all because someone we used to admire is showing just how much better their life has gotten because they got “thinner.”

And while there is of course a need for these drugs, the accessibility and marketing used is what most people have a problem with. Just as we thought we were entering a time where we got away from diet culture, we have ended up back in the same place with jab culture.

While Williams may have been the one caught up in the fire, she isn’t the only celeb promoting these drugs – and she won’t be the last.. It’s time we reflect on what this is really saying for this generation and our future generation, because having a slim body isn’t the only healthy body.