Ashley Graham says the rise of GLP-1 drugs has hit the body positivity movement like a blow to the gut. The 38-year-old model, who built her career around body acceptance, told Marie Claire that the widespread availability of the medication has put thinness back at the center of fashion and entertainment.
“It’s really disheartening,” Graham said. “There was a pendulum that swung that was so body acceptance, positivity, everybody be who they want to be. And now it’s going back this whole opposite way that feels like a smack in the face to the women who have felt like they’ve had a voice.”
Graham, who has three children and recently released a plus-size collection with JCPenney, said the shift does not erase the work that came before it. “It goes with the times - and GLP-1s are a time...,” she said, adding that she would keep pushing for acceptance for women of all body shapes and sizes.
That matters because the debate is no longer abstract for an industry that sells image for a living. Graham said there will still be women considered plus-size forever, and that the drug trend is not going to wipe out an entire group of women. For her, the response is not to retreat but to keep building around the community she already has.
“Why would I stop now and why would I get angry about the work I’ve done? I put my head down and I focus on the women we’ve built the community with,” she said. “It’s incredibly important to continue to advocate for women of all shapes, all sizes and all backgrounds to have clothes that fit... to have people who don’t have confidence, have confidence in themselves. Really, confidence at the end of the day, it doesn’t discriminate.”
The question now is not whether the conversation around bodies has changed. It has. Graham is arguing that her side of it will not disappear with the cycle. Thinness may be back in fashion’s spotlight, but she is betting that the need for representation, fit and confidence remains just as real.
