Overview:
Write a 1,700-word argumentative essay exploring whether the dominant narrative about weight loss—discipline, clean eating, and personal responsibility—still holds up in the age of pharmaceutical intervention, economic inequality, and digital diet culture.
Drawing from Rebecca Johns (“A Diet Writer’s Regrets”), Johann Hari (“A Year on Ozempic…”), Harriet Brown (“The Weight of the Evidence”), and Sandra Aamodt (“Why You Can’t Lose Weight on a Diet”), analyze how obesity is shaped by factors far beyond individual willpower. Consider the influence of wealth disparity, pharmaceutical marketing, addictive food engineering, and digital culture on how we define health, blame failure, and reward certain bodies over others.
Key Questions to Consider:
- Is the belief in personal discipline as the primary tool for weight loss a dangerous oversimplification?
- How do Ozempic and similar drugs challenge or reinforce our cultural obsession with self-control?
- What role does economic privilege play in deciding who gets access to medical weight-loss interventions?
- Are we witnessing a new form of techno-body capitalism where apps, injections, and dopamine loops manage our appetites better than we ever could?
- How might social media, AI influencers, and fitness-tracking technologies contribute to a culture of body surveillance and shame?
Required Sources (Use at least 4, MLA Format):
- Rebecca Johns – “A Diet Writer’s Regrets”
- Johann Hari – “A Year on Ozempic Taught Me We’re Thinking About Obesity All Wrong”
- Harriet Brown – “The Weight of the Evidence”
- Sandra Aamodt – “Why You Can’t Lose Weight on a Diet”
Recommended Focus Areas:
1. The Discipline Dilemma
How Johns and Hari dismantle the myth that all it takes is willpower. What emotional, social, and physiological realities do they reveal?
2. Set Points and Self-Sabotage
How Aamodt and Brown explain the body’s resistance to permanent weight loss. What does the science say about the limits of effort?
3. Ozempic and the Access Divide
Ozempic works—but only for those who can afford it. How does this reflect a larger healthcare injustice?
4. Capitalism’s Role in Body Control
How the Industrial Food Complex profits from addiction, and Big Pharma profits from the “cure.” Is this a closed system of exploitation?
5. Digital Diet Culture
Optional but encouraged: bring in TikTok, fitness influencers, AI diet advice, or surveillance devices (like smartwatches and calorie-counting apps). How do these amplify shame or create new ideologies of control?
Conclusion:
Make a claim about how society should reframe the conversation around obesity and weight loss. Should we abandon the willpower narrative? Should access to medical treatments be universal? Should we question the legitimacy of “health” as a moral standard at all?
Final Essay Requirements:
- 1,700 words minimum
- MLA format, 12pt Times New Roman, double-spaced
- Include a clear thesis, transitions, and a conclusion
- Use and cite at least 4 sources
Submit with a Works Cited page
Cinemorphosis 
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