| A popular, growing class of drugs for obesity and diabetes could, in an ideal world, help us see that metabolism and appetite are biological facts, not moral choices.  “The ideal female body of the past decade, born through the godless alliance of Instagram and the Kardashian family, was as juicy and uncanny as a silicone-injected peach,” Jia Tolentino writes in this week’s issue, about a recent push in a new direction toward a “skinnier, whiter ideal”—and how it relates to the popularity of a drug called Ozempic. The medication’s active ingredient, semaglutide, can help trigger a feeling of fullness, and is intended for treating Type 2 diabetes. Yet it has risen to prominence as the semi-secret weight-loss shot that “everyone’s been talking about,” one dietitian wrote, with celebrities and influencers reportedly using back channels to acquire it at any cost. “Everyone is suddenly showing up 25 pounds lighter,” Andy Cohen, who created the “Real Housewives” franchise, tweeted last fall. Tolentino reveals how easy it was to obtain Ozempic for herself—and considers the possible benefits for people who actually need the drug, as well as the pervasive fear of fat in American culture. The reality, she notes, is that “the people who most need semaglutide often struggle to get it, and its arrival seems to have prompted less a public consideration of what it means to be fat than a renewed fixation on being thin.” Support The New Yorker’s award-winning journalism. Subscribe today » | 
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