Don’t let Serena bully you into taking the fat shot

Serena Williams is one of the world’s greatest living athletes, but in her retirement, she seems to have forgotten the basics of diet and exercise.

You’ve likely seen Williams’ ad campaign for Ro, a telehealth provider that specializes in GLP-1 weight loss medications like Ozempic, Wegovy and Zepbound. In the now ubiquitous commercials, Williams tells how she personally used the drug to burn stubborn postpartum fat, a respectable 31 pounds over 8 months.

“It’s not a short cut, it’s science,” reads the company’s tagline.

Williams looks great – of course, of course. But just because scientists have discovered a cure for fatness doesn’t mean she still hasn’t taken the easy way out. The traditional method is equally scientific: eat less, burn more calories than you consume and you’ll healthily lose the weight.

After all, it’s not like these medications don’t have side effects. Potential complications are too long to list, but include everything from thyroid tumors and pancreatitis to run of the mill gastro distress. With the rush to market, long-term side effects still aren’t fully known, but you may wind up with shrunken heart muscles in addition to a flatter belly.

Sure, Williams had kids; life changes, hormones get whacky, and I’m sympathetic to the struggle – but that still doesn’t change the basics of human anatomy. If the queen of tennis can no longer nail diet and exercise 101, then us mortals have little hope.

Yet there’s a more cynical explanation as well.

The central implication of the campaign is that we’re living under a new normal, and it aims to use the Williams name, synonymous with athletic excellence, to neutralize any vestigial stigma while expanding its market.

“Serena’s on Ro. Are you next?” the front page of the website somewhat exploitatively asks.

Cui bono? A host of pharmaceutical companies, of course, but also Williams’ own husband, Reddit billionaire Alexis Ohanian, an early investor and board member of Ro. The couple obviously don’t need the money – but that still doesn’t necessarily preclude a little quid pro quo.

Still, I guess it’s better than the body positivity movement; being gratuitously obese has negative health effects as well, on top of the aesthetic indignity we’re all forced to publicly witness. But is there even really a stigma surrounding GLP-1’s, or is this yet another example of America’s self-legitimizing obsession with victimhood?

The campaign does more than simply normalize Ro, it offers a hit of moral superiority to the patient for supposedly being stigmatized in using it: “be brave, be like Serena,” it implies, and “buy our product.” And if anyone criticizes you? Well, they’re a bully – and we all know who we’re meant to fawningly praise in the battle between victim and oppressor.

But that seems more like wishful thinking. These weight loss drugs are like seeing a fat person jog in the park. Sure, you might snicker privately to yourself at the spectacle. But deep down, as well as in mixed company, you’ll earnestly commend them for taking the necessary steps for self-improvement.

For better or worse, Ro and companies like it are simply the new jogging. We have, in fact, scientifically surpassed diet and exercise. And there’s no stigma in that.

When the automobile replaced the horse and buggy, we didn’t shun those who sped ahead in their shiny new Ford. This is small-p progress, detached from any political connotation, and is a net boon for McAmerica.

Over 40 percent of Americans are obese according to government data, with an additional 30 percent being generally overweight. These are just averages, and the figures get worse – much worse – in certain demographics. You can shout about the value of diet and exercise until you’re blue in the face, but these stats have been increasing since the 1970s. No one’s going to listen.

In a choice between chronic, widespread and ultimately lethal obesity and potential pharmaceutical side effects, I choose the one I don’t have to look bulbously sweaty in the gym. So I’m pro-zempic, if you will; everyone who needs the extra motivation should enthusiastically take it. Hell, I’d rather see the feds subsidize weight loss drugs than junk food.

Yet a lack of stigma doesn’t mean there’s no room for personal conscience. I don’t believe for a second that someone with the will power and physicality of Serena Williams needs a chemical crutch to lose weight, alongside millions of other relatively healthy people who would rather take a shot than put in a little bit of effort.

Anyone can get in shape at any time – but you only have yourself to blame for waiting.