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The staff of Mother Jones is, once again, rounding up the heroes and monsters of the past year. This is a non-exhaustive and totally subjective list, giving our reporters a chance to write about something that brought joy, discontent, or curiosity. Happy holidays.

My Instagram algorithm has decided that I am a woman, and, therefore, I must want to lose weight.

In 2025, that meant it was impossible for me to scroll through my feed without being visually assaulted by ingratiating marketing campaigns, encouraging me to shed those last few pesky pounds via drugs, specifically off-label GLP-1.

For a brief moment, companies found it profitable to showcase physical diversity and promote the idea of loving your body just the way it is. Not so anymore.

In one ad, I am being pitched “looser jeans.” In another, I am being patronized by a cake: “PSA for the girls,” states shoddily Photoshopped frosting. “You don’t need to be obese to start a GLP-1.”

In practice, though, you do—at least according to the US Food and Drug Administration, which has only approved GLP-1 drugs for people with clinical obesity or Type 2 diabetes and for people who are overweight with weight-related comorbidities. The companies that manufacture the name-brand GLP-1s like Ozempic, Zepbound, and Wegovy haven’t meaningfully tested the drugs on people with BMIs lower than 27.

The sponsored ads that bombard my feeds, from telehealth companies like Willow, Noom, Fridays, EllieMD, and........

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