On Kelsey Ellis’s Instagram, the Vancouver-based fitness influencer posts unfiltered videos of herself doing squats or pull-ups, jogging or trying on workout sets, unashamed of the cellulite on her thighs and any other “lumps and bumps.” In one video, she’s in a battle stance, swatting away diet culture terms being flung at her: “SkinnyTok,” “pilates arms,” “What I Eat in a Day,” “bold glamour filter.”
Do a quick scroll of her Instagram, which has more than 160,000 followers, and the 36-year-old’s attitude looks like the epitome of body positivity, the broad social movement that promotes loving our bodies at any size. The ideology has its roots in the 1960s and 1970s, but exploded into the mainstream in the 2010s. That’s when plus-size models graced the covers of Sports Illustrated, Dove showcased “real” women in their beauty campaigns and Meghan Trainor released her pop anthem All About That Bass. “It’s pretty clear I ain’t no size two. But I can shake it, shake it,” she croons against a millennial pink backdrop in the music video.
In the past couple of years, however, Ms. Ellis has felt the pull to lose weight as other prominent body positivity influencers have started noticeably shrinking in size. Most don’t outright say it’s because they’re taking weight-loss medications, but in the comments of their social media posts, that’s what their followers suspect.
“Even as a body acceptance fitness coach, I can’t help but feel the impending doom and pressure that I need to shift my body,” says Ms. Ellis in a TikTok video. “The chokehold that social media has on us, I’m trying to hold onto people before they get sucked into the GLP-1 abyss.”
Glucagon-like-peptide-1 receptor agonists, better known as GLP-1s and even more ubiquitously referred to by brand names Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro, have been dubbed the wonder drugs – or culprits – behind the dramatic weight loss we’ve seen across pop culture. From A-listers and athletes to artists and influencers, it feels like everyone is getting skinnier.
And soon, the average person will have more access to these medications.
This year, Canada could become the first country in the world to carry generic copies of semaglutide – the anti-diabetic and anti-obesity medication that mimics the GLP-1 hormone – lowering monthly costs and eliminating one of the biggest obstacles faced by people seeking out the drug. A pen containing a month’s worth of doses of 0.5 milligrams could drop from around $223 to as low as $78.
As GLP-1s become more common, the modern body positivity movement is splintering. Some plus-size creators who built their fanbase promoting the philosophy look dramatically different from when they first started their accounts. For followers who saw that representation as revelatory, the feeling is a mix of grief, betrayal and aspiration. Meanwhile, for the plus-size creators who haven’t lost weight, some say it can feel like they’re being left behind as the culture shifts once again.
Model Ashley Graham walks the runway for Prabal Gurung during New York Fashion Week in February, 2018.ANGELA WEISS/AFP/Getty Images
A movement, interrupted
Searching “body positivity” on Instagram reveals a grid of mostly plus-size women: Draped in chic clothing, working out in fitness classes proudly baring their cellulite, in before-and-after-photos captioned “gaining weight is normal,” subverting the typical format.
Born out of the fat activism movement of the 1960s, the body positivity movement was spearheaded by Black and queer women who tied fatphobia to racism and misogyny, arguing that fat people deserved the same rights and treatment as thinner people. In the early 2010s, the body positivity movement resurfaced on social media, pushing back against the rampant criticism of women’s appearances that hit a fever pitch during the Y2K era. Visual platforms, such as Tumblr, Instagram and YouTube, became spaces for women to share and discover more diverse representation that was not typically seen in mass media.
Influencers who had long been preaching fat liberation saw a spike in followers, while other creators started preaching the importance of loving our bodies no matter their size. They spoke out against toxic diet culture, modelled clothes that emphasized their natural bodies rather than trying to hide them, and stressed that health care should exist without weight bias and discrimination.
Mindy Kaling arrives at the WWD Style Awards in Santa Monica in January.Jordan Strauss/The Associated Press
Body positivity, no longer inherently linked to the more radical fat liberation movement, became more palatable and accessible. Major fashion brands released extended sizing and started courting plus-size creators as models and ambassadors in North America. In a headline, Vogue announced three plus-size models as “The New Supers,” a rejection of the lithe figures that dominated the industry for decades. From fashion runways to suburban malls, a spectrum of body shapes and sizes were visible for the first time.
Then, around four years ago, celebrities known for their curves started slimming down – the Kardashians, Kelly Clarkson, Lizzo, Mindy Kaling, Meghan Trainor. Social media influencers followed, and eventually, as is the case in trend cycles, so too did the average person who could afford the monthly price tag for GLP-1s.
News outlets started to proclaim the end of body positivity, with headlines like “Bye-bye booty: Heroin chic is back” and proclaiming 2025 as “Shrinking Girl Summer.” A new dangerous trend glorifying restrictive eating, #SkinnyTok, went viral. Even after TikTok blocked the hashtag last summer, the content remains rampant on the platform.
It felt like whiplash for Ms. Ellis, who saw the body positivity movement peak on social media in 2020. The pandemic spurred a more wide-scale questioning of the beauty status quo, as people embraced stretchy waistbands, found a new appreciation for their health and critiqued the systems that made skinniness desirable. People were also spending an enormous amount of time online.
Vancouver-based fitness influencer Kelsey Ellis posts unfiltered videos of herself exercising on Instagram.Jenna Hill/Supplied
“It was like we were on the precipice. I think we were getting there. We were seeing a lot of social movements take a really progressive approach,” says Ms. Ellis.
Yet COVID-19’s effect was also more complicated. Obesity rates in Canada increased during the pandemic, while at the same time multiple studies have since shown that eating disorders surged. Researchers from Simon Fraser University found a strong association between increased social media use and the likelihood of developing an eating disorder among Canadian teens.
When GLP-1s arrived, social media feeds began to look different as body positivity influencers started to drop off.
“A lot of these previously fat public figures based their careers and their success off of being in a larger body,” says Layla Cameron, a Vancouver-based academic and filmmaker who studies fat activism. “So for a lot of fat people, it can feel like you were taken advantage of.”
These feelings can be especially potent since many followers form parasocial relationships with influencers, one-way emotional bonds that create the illusion of kinship between spectator and media figure. “The way we consume that media, scrolling on our phones with our phone inches away from our face, is really intimate,” says Ms. Cameron. “Those layers of grief, betrayal, anger and frustration feel much closer to you because of the ways that you’re consuming their content.”
For followers of these accounts, it can be especially frustrating if an influencer isn’t transparent about what led to their weight loss. And when it comes to influencers who pushed specific diets like keto or high-protein, touted detoxes or weight-loss teas, it can feel even more disingenuous when they’re not open about taking GLP-1s.
On Reddit, where dozens of communities exist to discuss influencers, users express their complicated feelings around the issue. On the one hand, many believe in the idea of bodily autonomy, and are against critiquing women’s bodies in general, even if someone is taking a drug to lose weight. Yet they also experience a sense of loss when their favourite influencers seemingly reject the very reason they started following them in the first place.
Joanna Wilcox, also known on Instagram as Keto in Canada, has built a following of more than 100,000.Joanna Wilcox/Supplied
Joanna Wilcox, better known on Instagram as Keto in Canada, built a following of more than 100,000 by documenting her journey on a ketogenic diet, a cousin to the Atkins diet that emphasizes eating high amounts of fat and no carbs. Ms. Wilcox had been overweight since she was a young teen, her weight yo-yoing as a result of diet and exercise. In 2016, after the birth of her second child, she started following a strict keto diet. For 1,000 days, she didn’t eat any carbs.
When the pandemic hit, she fell back into her old eating habits and decided to start taking Wegovy in May, 2025. “For a couple of years, I kept trying to go back to keto because that was my whole life online. I was the person who lost all this weight, who other people leaned on,” says Ms. Wilcox. “So the fact that I’m now a GLP-1 user and talking about it openly, I had a lot to lose.”
In an Instagram post, Ms. Wilcox revealed she was starting on a GLP-1 the day after she took her first dose. “I was shocked at the positive feedback from people, to be honest. There were a few people who were like, ‘I’m out. I’m not going to follow you any more,’” she says. “But mostly I think people were intrigued to see the journey.”
Although Ms. Wilcox’s online community was mostly supportive, some influencers have faced backlash when they disclose they’re taking GLP-1s.
Remi Bader, a New York-based plus-size influencer, became popular in the pandemic by recreating outfits worn by Zara and H&M models. As she started looking noticeably thinner, the comment section on her TikTok account was filled with speculation. Eventually, she explained that she had been suffering from binge eating disorder and depression, and had gone on GLP-1s. After the weight-loss drugs didn’t work, she underwent bariatric surgery.
Some followers lashed out at Ms. Bader, calling her a hypocrite and criticizing her for not revealing those details sooner, since she already shared so much of her life online. Earlier this month, Ms. Bader posted a message to her 2.2 million TikTok followers: “Imagine we lived a life where we just didn’t comment on people’s bodies.”
‘It was like seeing a unicorn’
Social media is a double-edged sword for people struggling with eating disorders. Whistleblowers from tech companies have exposed internal research that shows a connection between social media and body image issues in teen girls, and how even with this knowledge platforms have failed to stop harmful content from spreading.
At the same time, social media can be a place for those in eating disorder recovery to find positive representation.
Kenzie Brenna, an influencer based in Vancouver, first discovered body positivity in 2016 after a years-long cycle of yo-yo dieting. Deeply frustrated, she searched the hashtag “self-acceptance” on Instagram and discovered a world she didn’t know existed. “It was like seeing a unicorn. I saw women loving their rolls and stretch marks,” she says. “I was gobsmacked. I was like, ‘there is no way these people are happy with themselves.’”
After “hate-following” a few accounts, eventually her perspective changed.
Seeing plus-size content creators love their bodies, which looked similar to her own, allowed Ms. Brenna to deconstruct her own internal views of thinness, well-being and health. Her original Instagram account was focused on weight loss, but she started posting about her journey into body positivity.
Zoe Bisbing, an eating disorder and body image therapist in New York, says she will sometimes suggest clients follow body positivity influencers online. It can be incredibly affirming, she says, to see influencers or actors in their social media feeds representing a range of shapes and sizes.
“It becomes a really helpful way to work on self-acceptance. If I can see my body represented elsewhere, maybe I’m okay, maybe I’m safe, maybe I could just exist, maybe I could stop dieting, maybe I can just live in this larger body.”
When an influencer loses weight, it can erode or challenge a person’s belief system, she explains.
“For folks who have really felt like their mental health has improved as a result of connecting with things like body positivity and fat liberation, there’s this dual conflict. On one hand, there’s the ‘I feel awful seeing this. It’s making me feel like my body should be eliminated,’” Ms. Bisbing explains.
“But then there’s this dual piece where then they start to think, ‘I am curious about this. If I were to pursue this, am I abandoning body positivity? Am I then going to disappoint these either real or mythical people?’”
Advertising that’s ‘covert fatphobia’
No matter how someone feels about GLP-1s, it’s nearly impossible to escape the advertising. Ads for Ozempic and Wegovy wrap street cars and are prominent at sporting events. Sponsored posts are constant fixtures on Instagram, Facebook and Reddit. Plus-size influencers have lamented publicly about how marketing agencies, telehealth companies and “med spas” will reach out to them seeking partnerships or wanting to pay them to promote the drugs.
Virgie Tovar, a California-based body positivity researcher and a content creator who posts about fat liberation, was approached by companies asking her to promote GLP-1s on her Instagram account, where she has more than 83,000 followers.
Virgie Tovar, California-based body positivity researcher and content creator, posts about fat liberation.Michaela Joy/Supplied
Flabbergasted they would ask her, a vocal critic of the weight-loss industry, Ms. Tovar turned down all the offers. She says the insidious marketing of GLP-1s isn’t as transparent as it was for previous diets or weight-loss drugs. While Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig advertisements would promote dramatic before-and-after photos, modern advertising broadcasts more “covert fatphobia,” Ms. Tovar says.
“There are images of happy plus-size people injecting themselves, and we are so hungry for positive imagery of plus-size people, these companies are giving us what we’ve always wanted,” says Ms. Tovar. “But fundamentally, the message is the same: Something is wrong with your body that you need to change and we have the product for you.”
As telehealth and weight-loss companies enlist influencers for advertising, it’s a much harder time to be a plus-size content creator.
“For a moment, we had some sort of visibility and breathing room to be ourselves,” says Ms. Brenna, the influencer in Vancouver. “Now with the emphasis of weight loss and thinness, [body positivity] is no longer in the spotlight. It’s no longer a place where a person is cool because they’re plus-size and walking the runway.”
Ms. Ellis, the fitness coach, sees her role in the body acceptance movement as particularly important during this shift. “This is the time, now more than ever, to be that beacon and to stand by what I’ve believed this whole time, which is that everybody deserves to feel good in their body,” she says.
“I think we’re gonna see a lot of people who are performatively participating in body positivity switch teams,” says Ms. Ellis. “But there is a group of people who are steadfast and from day one have been huge advocates for the real movement of body positivity. I think right now it’s going to weed out the people who were never really body positive to begin with.”
