Serena Williams is Promoting Weight Loss Medication — and Reviews are Mixed

Here's the thing about GLP-1 drugs: We don't have the right to judge anyone for the choices they make for their bodies and personal health. At the same time, the rise of GLP-1 drugs (think: Ozempic and the like) does affect cultural beauty standards and ideas about what it means to be healthy. And we can be critical of those larger implications.

The tricky part, though, is finding the line between body shaming and cultural criticism.

Because this is a murky issue, people are split in their reactions to Serena Williams not only revealing that she has been using a GLP-1 medication, but appearing in a paid partnership for it.

Context matters. Serena Williams is a Black woman — a member of a demographic that is always on the receiving end of additional stigma. She's also an elite athlete — the picture of health and discipline. And to some, her endorsement of weight loss medications feels like a reinforcement of the narrative that health and weight are one and the same. 

For many, it wasn't the fact that Williams promoted weight loss drugs, but the wording she used to do so. “I never was able to get to the weight I needed to be no matter what I did, no matter how much I trained,” Williams told PEOPLE. And there it is: The idea that we "need" to be a certain size or body type to be worthy.

On the other hand, Williams is doing the thing so few celebrities dare to do: She's giving us the full story. She's not gatekeeping. And while this is a nuanced issue, with so many cultural elements at play, we have to give her credit for that.