Let’s play a game! I’ll say two truths and one lie from the 2025 Super Bowl: SZA looked phenomenal doing her performance at the halftime show, the Eagles won, and the Hims & Hers ad sent a negative message about weight loss. Wait β I messed up. These are all truths.
While there was an array of concerns from this year’s Super Bowl like Patrick Mahomes being thrown off his game by a voodoo doll or President Donald Trump’s latest backhanded tweet about Taylor Swift, the Hims & Hers advertisement is sparking major controversy over their solution for obesity in America.
Defining fatphobia
First off, what is fatphobia? To understand how the Hims & Hers ad fuels fatphobia, it’s important to know what it encapsulates.
“The irrational fear, prejudice and discrimination against people who have larger body sizes.”
-Definition of “Fatphobia” according to The Oxford Review
Some of the ways this discrimination can present itself are through stereotyping, negative portrayals of weight in the media, and societal pressures to lose it.
Unpacking the ad
The Hims & Hers adΒ starts by highlighting obesity as America’s deadliest epidemic, stating that 74% of Americans are overweight and obesity leads to half a million deaths each year. The tone of the commercial quickly shifts from being informational to being accusatory, and what I can only assume is their version of rebellious. Hims & Hers blames America’s $160 billion weight loss industry, stating, “It feeds off our failure.”
Hims & Hers says that medications for weight loss are priced for profits, not patients. “The system wasn’t built to help us; it was built to keep us sick and stuck.” As Childish Gambino’s song “This Is America” plays in the background, Hims & Hers offers a solution to the corrupt system of weight loss medications with β you guessed it β their company’s weight loss medication.
The ad states that their weight loss medication is affordable and doctor-trusted, ensuring you can find a treatment plan designed by a doctor to fit your body, goals and lifestyle. The Hims & Hers ad finishes by saying that their medication is the future of healthcare.
Rising controversy
It didn’t take long for the ad to receive backlash, not only due to the message it sent but also due to overall safety concerns regarding this new weight loss medication.
According to ABC News, unlike Ozempic and Wegovy, Hims & Hers’ weight loss drug is compounded, which means it hasn’t gone through the Food and Drug Administration approval process. Both Ozempic and Wegovy contain an ingredient called semaglutide and are approved to treat Type 2 diabetes and obesity.
The FDA has warned against compounded drugs because they have not undergone review for safety, effectiveness, or quality. Within the previously cited article, it is stated that before the commercial aired, Democratic Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois and Republican Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas sent letters asking the FDA to take action for the ad’s failure to include side effect disclosure or safety information required in pharmaceutical ads.
Additionally, according to Good Morning America’s video on the Hims & Hers ad backlash, some viewers felt the ad encouraged fat shaming and depicted weight loss drugs as a silver bullet for America’s obesity epidemic.
The stigma that surrounds health sets an unhealthy and, sometimes unreachable, standard for people. Not to mention, it is counteractive to its goal of reversing obesity to create a happier America, as it decreases good mental health and furthers poor physical health. While the obesity epidemic is a rising issue in America, the encouragement of healthy methods to lower this issue must be greater.