As GLP-1 medications continue to surge in popularity for weight loss and diabetes treatment, their use is rising among younger adults — with anecdotal reports suggesting the trend is making its way onto college campuses.
Market research has shown that GLP-1s – including semaglutide (Ozempic and Wegovy) and tirzepatide (Mounjaro and Zepbound) – are growing fastest among adults under 40, particularly young women.
A 2024 analysis published in JAMA found that 162,439 young adults ages 18 to 25 received at least one dispensed GLP-1 prescription in 2023. Women accounted for 76.4% of those patients, although the analysis included medications prescribed for both diabetes and weight management.
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Separately, the 2025 Monitoring the Future survey found that 2% of students in grades 8, 10 and 12 reported using a prescription GLP-1 medication, while another 2% said they had used one without a prescription.
A recent feature in The Cut, "The Secret 'Ozempidemic' on Sorority Row," argues that GLP-1 weight-loss drugs have quietly become part of campus culture at some elite universities, particularly within the competitive sorority recruitment process.
Three female students interviewed under pseudonyms said they were using compounded semaglutide or tirzepatide to improve their chances during rush and to meet an increasingly thin beauty ideal.
The students described a pressure to look extremely thin, noting that social media and weight-loss competitions among friends have fueled increased GLP-1 use.
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"For many young women who have just arrived on campus, thinness feels like the ticket into the best possible college experience," one student said.
"I didn't realize that someone who was 19 and also not super-overweight could get on it. I was like, ‘I gotta hop on,’" another said.
One former sorority recruiter said, "It's like, 'Well, there's no excuse for people to be fat because they could just get a GLP-1.'"
Jay Campbell, longevity and peptide expert and bestselling author, said that while these drugs were built to solve a metabolic crisis, they've been "hijacked as a cosmetic shortcut."
"For someone who's metabolically dysregulated, they are a genuine medical intervention," he told Fox News Digital. "But to a 20-year-old sorority member with a normal BMI, they look like an aesthetic hack in a syringe."
"Sororities are built on social visibility and constant comparison," Campbell said. "Everyone is looking at everyone's Instagram."
"When one girl drops 15 pounds in six weeks, that news spreads through the sorority house faster than any diet fad in history, because the results are fast, dramatic, and don't require the discipline of nutrition or training."
College-aged women already tend to have "high body-image sensitivity," he noted, which is heightened in the age of "a full-scale social contagion."
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"Many of these young women grew up already fighting disordered relationships with food and their physical bodies, and [now] you have a medication that can play on their insecurities."
That’s not to say GLP-1s don’t benefit many patients. In clinical studies of people taking the medications for obesity, fat mass generally accounts for more of the lost weight than lean mass, Campbell pointed out.
"The peptide isn't catabolic by itself – the real risk is that a healthy 20-year-old who isn't obese has far less metabolic and muscular reserve to lose from in the first place."
When a young woman loses weight rapidly without consuming enough protein or doing resistance training, she may lose a greater proportion of lean mass, Campbell warned. Rapid weight loss can also contribute to the facial or body changes sometimes referred to as "Ozempic face" and "Ozempic body."
For college students considering a weight-loss medication, Campbell recommends taking the following five steps before beginning treatment.
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"If you're not obese or metabolically compromised, ask yourself honestly why you're taking a medication designed for a disease you don't have," Campbell suggested.
While muscle loss is preventable, it requires work that most people using these drugs for cosmetic reasons aren't doing, Campbell said.
"That means real protein intake, not a protein bar as an afterthought, and resistance training," he advised. "Skip both, and you will absolutely lose muscle tissue that you cannot easily get back at 20 years old."
While adequate protein intake and resistance training may help reduce muscle loss, the amount of lean mass lost varies from person to person.
"Fertility matters here in a way most college students never think about," Campbell said.
GLP-1 medications should not be used for weight loss during pregnancy, experts agree. Semaglutide labeling advises stopping Wegovy at least two months before a planned pregnancy.
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Tirzepatide has been shown to reduce the effectiveness of oral hormonal contraceptives during treatment initiation and dose increases, so the FDA advises using an alternate method for four weeks during those periods.
Mental health still deserves attention, particularly for young adults with depression, anxiety, eating disorders or a history of using food to cope emotionally.
While the FDA has found no increased risk of suicidal thoughts or behavior from GLP-1 medications, patients should tell their prescriber about any new or worsening mood symptoms.
"Nobody knows what 10 or 20 years of GLP-1 use looks like in a woman who started at 20 with a normal body weight, because that population barely existed in the clinical trials," Campbell cautioned.
"Consider this a reminder to stop treating a powerful metabolic medication like a lifestyle accessory."
While GLP-1 medications can suppress appetite, Campbell added, "they will not fix a broken metabolic foundation or whatever underlying reason a 20-year-old feels she needs to lose weight in the first place."
"We’ve built a pharmaceutical shortcut that used to require months of behavior change, and young women in high-visibility social environments are early adopters of anything that changes how they look, fast."
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Campbell stressed that treatment should involve a qualified prescriber who evaluates the patient’s medical history and goals, provides appropriate monitoring, adjusts the dose as needed and helps manage potential side effects.
Fox News Digital reached out to the National Panhellenic Conference and to GLP-1 manufacturers requesting comment.
from Health News Today on Fox News https://ift.tt/aPhDr5E
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