Ozempic Face: When Your Daughter Looks Like Your Dad
Pete G. will never forget the night. There he was, sitting in the kitchen enjoying his nightly cup of tea, when someone walked through the back door. Pete wasn’t alarmed – much of his family lives in the vicinity so someone’s always popping in – but he was surprised to see his father show up this late. Pete was even more surprised to learn the person wasn’t his dad – it was his daughter. And she’d come down with a bad case of Ozempic Face.
Pete’s “Hey Dad!” didn’t go down to well with daughter Bree. In fact, she looked rather mortified. After all, it’s not every night a gal gets mistaken for her grandfather, no matter how dim the lights. Pete was rather mortified himself. But he wasn’t mortified by making the mistake. He was mortified by what caused the mistake in the first place. Then again, Pete wasn’t the first person to be mortified by the mortifying effects of Ozempic. And Bree wasn’t the first person to suffer from Ozempic Face.
Ozempic Face
“Rapid weight loss leads to volume loss in the face, but can also affect the collagen and elastin in the skin,” New York-based facial plastic surgeon Dr. Jennifer Levine told Vogue ace Hannah Coates. “Ozempic face can look gaunt, deflated, and saggy. Think raisin as opposed to grape!” The face and skin appearing hollow, droopy, and lax are all common hallmarks of Ozempic face—all key ingredients in the recipe for accelerated aging.
It’s that ‘accelerated aging’ that has us concerned. Surely, growing older faster can’t be a good thing.
It isn’t. In fact, accelerated (or premature) aging is actually a genetic disorder associated with many types of cancer. It even has a name: Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome (HGPS). And because the disorder somehow tends to cause premature death yet protect against cancer, scientists at the National Cancer Institute are eagerly attempting to learn everything about it.
Now we don’t for a moment think Ozempic face compares to HGPS. And we wholeheartedly hope the great good folks at the Center for Cancer Research find a cure for the latter as quickly as possible. We also hope that those who are opting for Ozempic merely for vanity’s sake will recognize the irony of using accelerated aging in order to look younger.
It’s no surprise there’d be consequences to losing a drastic amount of weight in what basically amounts to the blink of an eye. What’s surprising is that Ozempic face is the only real consequence. After all, when a person’s skin can’t keep up with their body something even more serious might likely be amiss.
The Ozempic Face Race
Ozempic apparently isn‘t the only diabetes-diet drug that causes Olympic face. In fact, it may not even be the best. Wegovy has been competing with Ozempic pretty much since dose one. Since May of ‘22 though, Mounjaro has joined the game. And from the, er, looks of things, it’s already out-shedding its competitors.
Like Ozempic and Wegovy, “Mounjaro regulates blood sugar [and] suppresses appetite,” writes The New York Times’ Amy Synnott. “If one is to believe the hushed accounts recently exchanged at an Upper East Side hair salon, [it also] makes excess pounds disappear into thin air.”
“Everybody is either on it or asking how to get on it,” said Dr. Paul Jarrod Frank, a dermatologist in New York. “We haven’t seen a prescription drug with this much cocktail and dinner chatter since Viagra came to the market.”
Even better, adds New York endocrinologist Dr. Rocio Salas-Whalen, Mounjaro not only has the same ability to control blood sugar as Wegovy and Ozempic, but she has seen “almost double the weight loss and close to none of the side effects.”
Safer or not, Mounjaro users still risk being afflicted with Ozempic face. And you can blame that on biology.
“When it comes to facial aging, fat is typically more friend than foe,” plastic surgeon Dr. Oren Tepper told The New York Times. “Weight loss may turn back your biological age, but it tends to turn your facial clock forward.”
So much for any face-saving properties in semaglutide or tirzepatide.
The Mayo Clinic Doesn’t Favor the Phrase Olympic Face
Ozempic Face, writes the Mayo Clinic’s Lisa Speckhard Pasque “is just the latest example of weight bias to crop up in the appearance-focused social media landscape.”
Mayo Clinic doctor Aoife Egan makes it unequivocal.
“Firstly, I think it very much makes light of the underlying conditions that we are treating — important conditions such as diabetes and obesity,” Dr. Egan says. “And secondly, I really feel that it just adds to the stigma and discrimination that have been associated with a diagnosis of obesity.”
“We’ve seen this down through the years and different ways: People with obesity have been referred to in various derogatory terms. This is just another way that has potential to cause harm to a vulnerable group of people.”
We agree – albeit with a caveat. If the phrase Ozempic face can scare someone away from unnecessarily taking any of the above drugs, well, we’re all for it.
Ahem.
TikTok Treatment
Scare tactics aside, there will never be a time or a place when it will be wise to consult TikTok for one’s health. Furthermore, those who do so risk great woe. Yes, humanity has a capacity for vanity. An immense capacity. And yes, that capacity seems to be breaking younger and younger by the era. People of a certain age, however, should know better.
They should also do better. No, that’s not always easy. People are people. And they don’t stop being people just because they’ve turned 30 or 40 or 50 or more. They don’t stop wanting to look good either. No matter how much they might say otherwise.
But if there’s something to be said about acting your age (and there is), then there surely must be something to say about looking your age. That goes double for the person who’s comfortable in their own skin. Oh, we don’t always have to let time take its toll. It would be wise though to know when the clock can’t be beaten.
If a doctor has prescribed Ozempic for diabetes and/or obesity, by all means, follow the doctor’s orders. But for those who simply want to wear a smaller size, you might first consider a nutritionist. After all, wouldn’t a healthy diet help trim you down without risking a case of Ozempic face?
Obesity and Sobriety
Healing Properties first got on to Ozempic when we learned the drug also dampened a user’s appetite for alcohol. In fact, using semaglutides in order to stop drinking seems to be verging on becoming a thing. Now while we still don’t recommend taking anything without a prescription, there is something remarkable about seeing someone lose weight and get sober, especially when said someone suffers from obesity. So if you’re such a someone, then please see your doctor. But if you’re simply interested in getting sober, then please give us a ring. We’ll get you sorted right quick. And you won’t ever suffer Ozempic face either!
