181 - Is Taking Ozempic A Moral Failing?
Food companies, advertising, and the medical system are conspiring to make you fat. So is taking Ozempic cheating? Or is it merely evening the odds?
For decades the show South Park has preached personal responsibility in all matters, and shamed and mocked the characters who reject that responsibility - so much so that the creators have been accused of hiding libertarian messages in their art. However, perhaps for the first time, South Park ended a recent culture episode with a more Jesus take the wheel kind of attitude. During their episode about Ozempic, The End of Obesity, show creators demonstrate that between food cartels selling us addictive food, and a crooked medical system trying to keep us unhealthy, the only way to win the game might be to cheat. Which brings us to our question for today…is taking Ozempic a moral failing? A vanity? A miracle cure that can free us of our dependence on addictive foods?
In this conversation, Joe and Todd also talk about their personal experiences with Ozempic and other GLP-1 weight loss drugs. We discuss how it’s being sold to the public (whether they need it or not), who Ozempic was originally intended for, and who should be shamed for injecting themselves for purposes of vanity, rather than health. We’ll also discuss why state medical coverage of Ozempic is being revoked for low-income Americans, creating a system where unhealthy patients who need the drug to improve their health are being cut off, whereas wealthy patients who want it to cut a few pounds for swimsuit season are “prescription shopping” and going out of pocket.
Or, as the creators of South Park put it; wealthy people get Ozempic, poor people get Body Positivity.
Links:
https://www.webmd.com/drugs/2/drug-174491/ozempic-subcutaneous/details
https://www.paramountplus.com/movies/video/Cd3Fse6Xve3v7e69nMKZmNchXwEHGvll/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Park:_The_End_of_Obesity
https://www.axios.com/2024/02/16/ozempic-weight-loss-drugs-medicaid-coverage-glp-1