New York City’s annual Memorial Sloan Kettering Fall Party is no stranger to glossy-haired women dressed in current-season gowns from Carolina Herrera and Oscar de la Renta, their slim waists and jiggle-less upper arms on parade for all to admire.
But when I looked at pictures from the November event, I noticed waistlines that appeared to be more cinched than ever, presumably courtesy of Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, and Zepbound. And I can say that with some authority, given all the conversations about the drugs that I heard were happening during the cocktail hour.
New Yorkers were among the earliest users of these GLP-1 agonists, the popular weight-loss drugs that are most commonly prescribed for treating obesity and diabetes. They’re also at the vanguard of a new way of talking about weight loss.
Take Dr. Amanda Kahn, a Manhattan-based internist and regular at the fundraiser. Dressed in an asymmetrical brocade column, she admitted without hesitation that “the majority” of her friends and patients are taking the medications. When they’re complimented on their figures, she says, they reply without hesitation, “We can thank Amanda for that.”
And she’s not judging. Kahn has also used Zepbound and Mounjaro to drop a few pounds or, as she puts it, “not spiral” during vacations and holidays.
In years past, discussing the contents of your medicine cabinet was about as gauche as revealing the contents of your bank account. But GLP-1s have given many women a new freedom to chat about weight loss, bodies, and food.
These days, if you suddenly lose 10 pounds and skip dessert, your medical history may become small talk at a cocktail party. More and more women are embracing the topic enthusiastically. Going on a GLP-1 led Sarita Tabarez, the vice president of the social club NeueHouse in New York, to drop 23 pounds in three months. “The members have seen my transformation and say, ‘Whatever she’s doing, I want,’” she says. “I’m a walking testimonial.”
Some are still clinging to privacy. Dr. Florence Comite, one such physician who practices in Manhattan, Miami Beach, and Palo Alto, recalls running into a patient at a Silicon Valley conference who walked right past her as if she were a stranger. Dr. Comite raised the matter at their next appointment, and the patient initially denied the snub. But ultimately she confessed her fear that her colleagues would see her with an endocrinologist and assume, correctly, that her weight loss was Ozempic-induced. “Not everyone wants to reveal how they’ve lost the weight,” says Dr. Comite. “But, still, we really need to stop thinking about this as a problem of a lack of willpower.”
There’s another intriguing phenomenon at certain dinner parties. Many hosts are asking guests if, in addition to any allergies or food sensitivities, they’re on a GLP-1-friendly diet. Typically, that means protein-heavy and light on everything else, according to Dr. Comite. She advises her patients to consume at least one gram of protein per kilogram (2.2 pounds) of body weight per day, along with healthy fats and fiber, in order to maintain muscle mass.
The new rules of Ozempiquette are also at play in Los Angeles, where GLP-1 use is common. Instead of the “power salad” lunch, says a Hollywood executive who asked to remain anonymous, there’s the power walk, fueled by a protein shake. “If I book a table for five for dinner, at least one person is going to be on the drugs,” says the executive. She has also noticed that those on GLP-1s tend to talk more passionately than ever about their vitamins and supplements. “You thought wellness was important to L.A. before?” she says. “It’s reached a whole new level of obsession now.”
In New York, Dr. Caroline Messer, a clinical endocrinologist with a practice on Fifth Avenue, says she’s still a little shocked when patients ask her if she takes GLP-1s. (She does.) But, she concedes, “we’re all obsessed with each other’s eating habits.... If [weight loss] has been a lifelong issue for you, you might want to know why someone else has been more successful.” Messer says that some of her patients keep their drug use secret even from their families, going so far as to hide their syringes, which should be refrigerated, in Land O’Lakes cartons.
But Ozempic use is no secret in Messer’s household. Her husband, Marcelo Messer, an investment banker, also takes the drug. Marcelo says he’s lost 10 pounds and is no longer a prisoner of junk-food cravings, but his low appetite is often a topic of conversation at business dinners. “I have to read the room a bit,” says Marcelo, who explains why he now has trouble finishing his filet mignon. “I feel like I owe people an explanation.”
In some ways, all this weight-loss speculation is a lot like the current guessing game around actresses’ facelifts, says Dr. Sean Alemi, a plastic surgeon on Long Island. “My mother taught me not to comment on someone’s appearance,” says Alemi, who reports that as many as 10 percent of his patients are GLP-1 users seeking help for their weight-loss-related skin laxity. Good advice, but if you’re hosting a dinner party, stock up on some jerky, just to be safe.
Tatiana Boncompagni Hoover is a New York–based journalist and novelist
