Lizzo on Weight Loss & the ‘Ozempic Era’

In a candid personal essay, pop superstar Lizzo is addressing the current cultural conversation around weight loss, particularly in the age of medications like Ozempic. She’s sharing the real story behind her own significant weight loss, emphasizing that it stemmed from a profound mental health crisis, not societal pressure to conform to a smaller body type.

A Shift in Perspective

Published on Substack, Lizzo’s essay, titled “Why is everybody losing weight and what do we do? Sincerely, a person who’s lost weight,” delves into her experiences starting in the fall of 2023. The 37-year-old singer, who still identifies as a “proud big girl” and notes she’s over 200 pounds, felt her identity as a musician was being overshadowed by public focus on her weight. She expressed frustration with being accused of making “being fat” her entire personality and the pressure to be hypersexual to counteract the desexualized “mammy” trope.

Lizzo stated, “We’re in an era where the bigger girls are getting smaller because they’re tired of being judged.” This sentiment highlights the complex pressures faced by larger women in society today.

From Crisis to Action

The singer revealed that her weight loss journey began during a period of intense emotional distress following a “vicious scandal” – referring to the sexual and racial discrimination lawsuit filed against her in August 2023. She described becoming “deeply suicidal,” withdrawing from loved ones, and entering a state of shutdown. “In my self-loathing and self-neglect, I began to rot,” she wrote, a stark contrast to her public persona of self-love.

Instead of resorting to old coping mechanisms like binge eating, Lizzo found herself detached from those urges. “Honestly, I didn’t care about my body. I didn’t want to feel safe. A huge part of me blamed myself for what had happened to me,” she admitted. This emotional detachment, she explained, led her to take action by starting Pilates, which gradually helped her regain stability and shed weight.

The Shifting Landscape of Body Positivity

While documenting her fitness journey online, Lizzo emphasized that the physical results were secondary to the process itself. She observed how polarized conversations about weight have become, pointing to the shrinking availability of extended sizes, fewer opportunities for plus-size models, and the trend of “all of our big girls are not-so-big anymore.” “We have a lot of work to do, to undo the effects of the Ozempic boom,” she concluded.