Introduction:

Writer, speaker, and weight-inclusive health/fitness professional Ragen Chastain joins us to discuss the potential side effects and other downsides of using GLP-1 drugs (like Ozempic and its ilk) for weight loss, the massive influence the manufacturers of these drugs are having on the public discourse about them, why the media don’t often report on these conflicts of interest, how drugmakers have co-opted talking points about weight stigma and weight cycling, how opposition to these drugs in some integrative- and functional-medicine spaces still perpetuates stigmatizing ideas about body size, and more.

The first half of this interview is available to everyone, and you can hear the whole thing by becoming a paid member at rethinkingwellness.substack.com.

Ragen Chastain is a speaker, writer, researcher, Board Certified Patient Advocate, multi-certified health and fitness professional, and thought leader in weight science, weight stigma, health, and healthcare. Utilizing her background in research methods and statistics, Ragen has brought her signature mix of humor and hard facts to healthcare, corporate, conference, and college audiences from Kaiser Permanente and the Diabetes Education Specialists National Conference, to Amazon and Google, to Dartmouth, Cal Tech and canfitpro. Author of the Weight and Healthcare newsletter, the book Fat: The Owner's Manual, co-author of HAES Health Sheets, and editor of the anthology The Politics of Size, Ragen is frequently featured as an expert in print, radio, television, and documentary film. In her free time, Ragen is a national dance champion, triathlete, and marathoner who holds the Guinness World Record for Heaviest Woman to Complete a Marathon. Ragen lives in Oregon with her fiancée Julianne and a rotating cast of foster dogs.

Resources Mentioned

• My other podcast and newsletter, Rethinking Wellness (upgrade to paid to hear the full interview)

• Ragen’s Weight and Healthcare newsletter

• Overview of the evidence on weight cycling

• Studies finding that weight cycling can explain excess mortality risk

• GLP manufacturers partnering with plus-size influencers

• The Observer’s reporting from 2023 on Novo Nordisk’s influence, and its proposal to target people on unemployment

• Subscribe to the Food Psych Weekly newsletter

• My online course, Intuitive Eating Fundamentals

• My first book, Anti-Diet: Reclaim Your Time, Money, Well-Being, and Happiness Through Intuitive Eating

• My second book, The Wellness Trap: Break Free from Diet Culture, Disinformation, and Dubious Diagnoses and Find Your True Well-Being

• My third book, The Emotional Eating, Chronic Dieting, Binge Eating & Body Image Workbook

• The Making Peace with Food Card Deck

• Subscribe to the podcast here