A gentle warning: This essay discusses eating disorders, body image, weight-loss medications, and disordered eating. GLP-1 medications can be medically appropriate and life-changing for some people. This is not an argument against medication or against anyone taking it under appropriate medical care. It is an argument for paying attention to the culture developing around these medications — especially among young people.
An ELLE investigation published in 2025 described GLP-1 use on college campuses as something surrounded by secrecy, rumors, and what one student characterized as a new form of campus gossip. Research cited in the article showed prescriptions among Americans ages 12 to 25 increased dramatically between 2020 and 2023, with particularly large increases among young women.
Morgan DiPrimo argues that should get our attention — not because every college student taking one of these medications is doing something wrong, but because college students were already walking into one of the most vulnerable developmental periods for body image and eating disorders before a medication capable of dramatically changing appetite and weight entered the cultural equation.
College is often the first time a young person is living away from home. Eating patterns change. Sleep changes. Friendships change. Bodies change. Stress changes. Identity changes. At the same time, students are surrounded by peers while carrying a phone that delivers an endless stream of edited bodies, wellness advice, “what I eat in a day” videos, gym transformations, diet culture, and increasingly, weight-loss medication content. An eating-disorder clinician quoted by ELLE noted that some patients can identify college as the exact period when their eating disorder began.
The essay examines how GLP-1s are spreading across college campuses while algorithms, targeted advertising, thinness culture, and eating-disorder vulnerability collide — and asks what happens when a medication becomes more than a medication, and more than a medical decision.
Originally published on morgandiprimo.substack.com.
