Health Matters.

"Happiness is the highest form of health" — Dalai Lama

When Kate Moss uttered, “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels,” in 2009 I was onboard with her way of thinking. After all, I’d just left my fashion job at the brand that made her (in)famous and was prone to minimizing meals when I wanted sample size dresses.

I was not dissimilar to the women around me, hustling to succeed while teetering on heels with large lattes in hand. There was a groundswell of love for all things Olson (and The Row launch) and a 24% increase in eating disorders (MK Olson among them) in the early aughts. Yet even with my frequent fitness and poor eating habits, I was deemed “healthy.”

Size zero theoretically came into fashion in 1966 for British supermodel Twiggy, but fashion folklore believes it wasn’t until 1999 — at the hands of Nicole Miller — that size 0 and (eek) 00 became entrenched.

"I'm sure a lot of people had the same idea at the same time, so who knows," the famed designer once said. "For me, it became a necessity because my sales department wanted to size clothing a bit larger, and I didn't want to lose the tiny customer."

Sadly, size matters. At least to our psyche. Which is why vanity sizing — the practice of altering measurements to enable consumers to fit into smaller sizes — became all the retail rage. But “insanity sizing” (as it is oft referred) clutters our mindset (and our closets), working against the purpose of this self-esteem driven sizing initiative. I don’t know a single woman who does not have clothes that span at least 3 different sizes. 

Upon my departure from both fashion and a decade spent in NYC, my size no longer shaped me. Entering my 40’s (I told you I am a late bloomer!), I began to listen to (rather than glare at) myself more and heeded wisdom, as well as wit, from older women who knew better like Betty Halbreich, the 95-year-old legendary Bergdorf Goodman personal shopper, who wrote I’ll Drink to That: A Life in Style, With a Twist.  “Never ever trust the size tag on a piece of clothing,” she’d said. My clothing size was not only meaningless at retail, but also irrelevant in life. Shortly after leaving the city that never sleeps, I became pregnant with multiples. There is nothing like a pregnancy to verify size is immaterial.

Until the Body positivity movement. When Taryn Brumfitt launched this mission in 2012, to help people embrace their bodies, her intention was pure. Her documentary “Embrace” captures her crusade beautifully. While the decade since the undertaking has been afflicted with criticism — namely that encouraging lifestyle habits which negatively affect one's health are not helping anyone — that’s not the grave issue. The chief complaint should be that it continues to imply your self-worth is tied solely to your appearance; expanding the definition of beauty perpetuates that beauty is our only end goal.

When beauty became intertwined with wellness, I dove into writing about it more frequently. I had popularized fragrances, cosmetics and blowouts at the start of my freelance writing career to get clippings, but what drew me in as the years passed was how much beauty was striving to be redefined around self-care. More than masks, although they were a great start, but fitness, meditation, nutrition, hot and cold therapies, longevity and of course anything touting the antithesis of “anti-aging” — It was an expansion of not just a category but our minds, allowing us to not only feel beautiful but grounded. Listening to ourselves and tending to our needs was (and remains to be) just the connection we need.

Then came Ozempic.

It was 1999 skinny all over again. While The NY Post declared “Heroin Chic is Back”, the NY Times Op-Ed refuted, “The Super-Skinny Ideal Isn’t ‘Back’ — It Never Left.”

While I’ve come so far, and along the way have incorporated nutritionists and a dedication to Crossfit among other fun fitness that encouraged strong not skinny, I was not immune when my own doctor suggested the abused weight-loss drug for my genetically high blood sugar.

My instincts said no but I agreed to try. One month.

I made it through one dose.

Within the first 24 hours, I felt a dizziness comparable to auras (precursors to seizures) that I’d experienced more than fifteen years ago, when diagnosed with a seizure disorder. As the week progressed, I rode waves of nausea and the sight of food — and eating itself — was repulsive. Unstable, I feared driving to carpool. I stopped working out and simply shut down. On the 7^th day, as symptoms had mitigated, I ate carbs. I proceeded to vomit and experience GI issues as they ripped through my body, forcing their way out. Forget the thyroid risk, Ozempic does not lend itself to a life worth living.

At 54, I should have known how to listen better. Not to prescription pundits, but to myself. With 273 million #ozempic tiktoks, and every media source — from The New Yorker and The Atlantic to Air Mail and Vogue covering the meteoric rise of the diabetes drug — I was well aware there are side effects, but headlines frequently focused on the psychological effects (and the rise in eating disorders) rather than the brutal physical ones; and even while warning, glorified extraordinary weight losses are always mentioned.

I share my tale so that the Ozempic notoriety doesn’t surpass — or gloss over altogether — the damage occurring behind closed doors. As much to your body as to your mind. I believe, like the Dexatrim heyday of my youth, Ozempic’s reign will run its course. There will always be (and in Ozempic’s case, there already are) new contenders, but it’s within our control to stop giving drugs — or the size of our clothes — the power to influence our conceptions of weight and beauty. Or to alter our happiness.

Note: There are hundreds of type two diabetes drugs available that can safely help those of us with genetic predisposition to high blood sugar. Ask your doctor for alternatives. We can have both health and happiness.