Young Aussies who turn to weight-loss injectables risk relapse into ‘dangerous habits’, experts warn
Experts have warned that weight-loss drug use among young Aussies can lead to serious health risks and as eating disorder survivors have also spoken out.
Exclusive: Health professionals are warning that a growing number of teenagers and young adults using weight-loss drugs may be fuelling a rise in eating disorders and body-image distress.
Experts say off-label use among young people is exposing a generation to serious health risks, including malnutrition, stunted growth, and long-term impacts on bone and brain development.
Erin Murnane, an eating disorder dietitian and owner of Balance and Bite, said she is already treating a growing number of young clients using GLP-1 drugs — many of whom are relapsing into restrictive eating patterns.
“For anyone with a history of disordered eating or body image issues, starting a medication that’s entirely focused on weight loss can be highly triggering,” Ms Murnane said. “The external validation, compliments, smaller clothes, seeing the number on the scale drop, can easily reignite old patterns around control, guilt, and ‘earning’ food. But when weight loss slows, that plateau can trigger even more food restriction and guilt, which can quickly become dangerous.”
Ms Murnane said the aggressive marketing of these medications is also worsening the problem.
“We’re so focused on ‘managing’ obesity that we overlook how constant ads and ‘success’ stories affect people living with disordered eating, body dysmorphia, and the 4.5 per cent of Australians currently living with an eating disorder,” she said.
“They’re framed as a breakthrough or quick fix, when in reality they come with serious health risks and can deepen someone’s already complicated relationship with food and their body.”
Eating disorder clinician Josephine Money, founder of Eat Love Live, said many young people start these drugs without adequate education about side effects, cost, or plans for discontinuing use.
“We need to consider what we know about malnutrition in young people,” Ms Money said.
“It will impact growth potential, bone health for life, micronutrient levels, and cognitive function. Inadequate nutrition acutely affects brain chemistry, mood, anxiety, and academic performance.”
She added that she has heard of people accessing the drugs online with just a photo of themselves.
“Some young people are finding ways to start these medications without guidance,” Ms Money said.
“For those struggling with body-image distress or disordered eating, this ease of access can make the medications feel like a quick fix — which can worsen unhealthy patterns around food and weight control.”
Both experts are calling for stronger safeguards, including mandatory eating disorder screening, co-ordinated care with dietitians and psychologists, and stricter advertising regulations.
“Anyone being prescribed a GLP-1 should first be screened for an eating disorder,” Ms Murnane said.
“Clear referral pathways to dietitians and psychologists would help ensure these medications are used safely, especially among vulnerable groups.”
For parents, Ms Money advises calm, supportive conversations to understand why their child is considering these drugs.
“Seeking weight loss medication is often a symptom of underlying body or psychological distress,” she said.
“Validate their feelings and reach out to professionals to navigate these discussions safely.”
EATING DISORDER SURVIVORS’ WARN OF WEIGHT-LOSS DRUG RISKS
‘FEELS LIKE WE’RE TAKING A BIG STEP BACKWARDS’
Central Coast influencer Isabella Davis has built a community of more than 260,000 followers by doing the opposite of what social media often rewards — showing real, unfiltered bodies and speaking openly about recovery.
But long before she became a voice for self-acceptance, her story began like many others: quietly and painfully.
“I was around eight years old when I first started struggling with my body image,” Ms Davis said.
“I just remember seeing the women around me, the adults in my life, looking in the mirror and saying negative things about their bodies. As a child you just absorb that.”
By her teens, those feelings had deepened. At 16, she joined a “bikini body challenge” that pushed restriction, dieting, and overexercising.
“That’s when things became the most toxic,” she said.
“I was in a constant cycle of punishing myself, trying to earn my worth through how I looked.”
Now 29, Ms Davis is part of a new wave of creators using their platforms to dismantle the beauty standards that once trapped them. But watching the resurgence of “skinny culture” – fuelled by drugs like Ozempic and the rise of “thinspiration” on TikTok and Instagram – has left her disheartened.
“It feels like we’re taking such a big step backwards,” she said.
“Sometimes I think about my younger self and if Ozempic or similar drugs had been as accessible and normalised back then as they are now, I don’t know that I wouldn’t have tried them.”
She believes much of what’s online today is “diet culture rebranded as wellness.”
“If your dream body requires constant restriction or makes you miserable to maintain, then it’s not your dream body,” she said.
“It’s a nightmare dressed up as one.”
WEIGHT ‘DETERMINED MY WORTH’
At the height of Lexi Crouch’s eating disorder, she was hospitalised more than 25 times and twice placed in a medically induced coma.
In her battle, she also turned to unregulated weight-loss products — from pills to “skinny teas” — long before they were properly controlled.
“Growing up in a time when diet culture was not only rife, it was a way of life of many before we knew about health today,” she said.
“It was the 90s when Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig were prominent and looked at losing weight as a sign of health.”
“Because there was such a fixation on weight everywhere I looked as a young child it determined my worth and having a perfectionist personality, I pushed myself into trying to fit into the mould of thinking I was being healthy and doing the right thing.”
And the disorder had devastating consequences.
“It hugely affected my life in many ways, not only stripping me of my childhood where I should have been enjoying birthday cake instead of counting calories,” she said.
“But right into my formative teenage years where I pushed myself into perfection that I was unable to even finish my schooling due to anorexia.
During her illness, Ms Crouch also experimented with unregulated weight-loss products and knows first-hand the dangers of it.
“You become so overtaken that you resort to any measure to keep losing weight without being concerned of the repercussions,” she said.
“Teenagers are still developing in the brain and unable to properly register just how detrimental and dangerous it is to take Ozempic and other weight-loss drugs.”
Now a recovered eating disorder coach and mother, the 37-year-old warns of the growing dangers facing young people today.
“Diet culture and the pressure to lose weight and look a certain way is still absolutely rife in our society,” she said.
“I genuinely think the risks of weight loss drugs are a lot more concerning than even adults may realise for teens,” she said.
“Not only is there a possibility of death as an extreme measure but it is entirely messing with the health picture for many.
“Teens and young adults should not be even considering quick access weight loss medications and we need to do better to help protect. It hasn’t helped that at all celebrities and influencers are freely talking about their experience of Ozempic knowing that venerable and susceptible teens are taking the information in without being able to consider the damaging effects. It is irresponsible.”
‘LOSING WEIGHT WILL NOT MAKE YOU LOVE YOURSELF’
Jane Murphy’s struggle with body image began when she was just nine years old.
“It was torturous,” she said. “It stemmed at least in part from experiencing bullying at a young age, being called things like “fat”, “ugly” and worse.”
What started as childhood bullying evolved into a serious eating disorder: atypical anorexia, a condition in which someone meets all the criteria for anorexia nervosa but doesn’t appear underweight.
“My hair was falling out, I felt sick and hungry all the time,” she said.
“And something terrible about having an eating disorder is that it will tell you that you are not sick no matter how sick you are.”
However, it took more than a decade of disordered eating before a family member convinced her to seek support.
“That made me realise that my life had become centred around my eating disorder and I wanted it to get better,” she said.
“My GP saved my life by taking me really seriously when I started that conversation, even though I was a person in a larger body.”
Now, Ms Murphy is vocal about the risks of quick-fix weight-loss trends, particularly drugs like Ozempic.
“My biggest concern is that using these kinds of medication are putting a Band-Aid solution over a bigger problem,” she said.
“Losing weight will not make you love yourself. I can promise this, I have tried it and it didn’t work.”
She said it’s also concerning to see “drastic set of medications” being used so widely.
“As history has shown us, sometimes it takes a long time for us to know all of the consequences of medications,” she said.
“It also makes me really sad that gains over the last 10 years in what we call positivity have been set back to the beginning overnight because so many public figures have promoted weight loss drugs now.”
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Originally published as Young Aussies who turn to weight-loss injectables risk relapse into ‘dangerous habits’, experts warn
