After Years As A Fat Activist, I Am Now Pro-Ozempic - And Take It Myself
PLUS Get A Free Sassy T-Shirt Just For Commenting!!
Hello Presents!
You are by far my biggest gift this year (except for my daughter, of course, and the three current additional residents of our NYC Apartment-recently-turned-Petting Zoo –one feline and two canine– what was I thinking?!).
So I am doing my favorite thing on this Christmas day (I started working on this piece at 5:30 am, so it is almost all day) by talking to you! I say talking, because one of my things is that this is not a newsletter for you to read and absorb and learn from (other people do that much better). Instead, I am here telling you my and our stuff in the hopes of starting conversations that we continue in the comments.
I’m too burnt out to create a smooth transition here, but anyway… It's been especially thrilling to have had an influx over these last few days of new AJPT subscribers who are Sassy readers (present tense is intentional there, because if you read it, you are one for life, in my opinion - like a state of being). I’m so glad you found us here! Thank you! Also: You’ve achieved such incredible feats over the last 38 years - far exceeding even my huge expectations! It is truly moving and exhilarating to see you again.
Because I don't know how great the search is on this site, I wanted to point you new people (and old people who just haven’t taken the time) in the right direction for some particularly Sassy- (and Jane- and XOJane-) related stuff that you might be interested in. So here goes a potential reading list you can pick and choose from if you want:
Christina Kelly fans can start with this one, which references a story she did at Jane magazine that some of you might remember, and then all of these that she wrote here too:
This story on menopause, because if there’s one person I would want to hear from on the topic (and pretty much every other topic that can ever be written about), it’s Christina. You?
This one that’s pure Christina too.
And this masterpiece she wrote you for her latest birthday!
Also, you might like this story from my original Sassy Assistant, Elizabeth Larsen, with its insight into what was going on behind the scenes in those early days in the highly pink Sassy offices and in her own life too. I love her piece and learned more about how working at Sassy affected her while reading it than I ever knew at the time.
If you care for me at all, I just wrote this.
And I have also written about my daughter (of Jane Magazine 2002 spineline birth announcement fame). And anyone who reads that deserves to know that, yes they are still together!
And it was harder than I expected, for weeks afterward, but I wrote about my Dad.
I won’t tell you everything else I have written on AJPT because that would be maybe even more obnoxious than naming this website after myself. But you may want to check out this little piece that breaks down who and what led to the demise of Sassy. I was surprised by the responses I got after publishing it in that so many people had no idea why Sassy just died.
Then for Jane magazine fans, we have Esther Haynes who worked at both publications and wrote this riveting story about something beyond creepy that happened to us at Jane.
And for any XOJane-specific fans, here is some more (sober) Cat Marnell for you!
Also, because it has been ages since I played this game and since so many of you are new, I would love to know from each of you (including you old-timers, who count too) in the comments whether you were:
A) a Sassy reader
B) a Jane reader
C) an XOJane reader
D) none of the what-the-fuck-are-you-talking-about above
Bonus points if you remember Jane Radio or watched my bad TV talk shows. And just to make it even more worth your while, I will give a free AWESOME Sassy t-shirt to the person whose comment about how or why they got here gets the most likes! I will give it a week to tally up for people who have crazy full inboxes like mine…
What I’m really excited about - today and this whole next year - is reminiscing with you amazing people that I have known for more than 3 decades and meeting you amazing people who have been here for 3 days. It means everything to me that you are here.
And now, on to today’s featured story by Robin, who fits the A, B, and C criteria above herself - starting with Sassy’s first issue when she was 15! If you also want to write here, email me your manuscript or idea please at jane@anotherjaneprattthing.com. I WILL find your email, I promise.
Love love,
Jane
PS Unfortunately, I technically can’t let you comment here without you signing up as a paid subscriber, which I hate and find an odd glitch of a policy, but there’s a lot of true good here at Substack, so we’ll get past that. Here are my two workarounds if you’re not ready to pay at this point (the same price monthly in today’s dollars as an issue of Sassy in 1988, by the clever-us way):
You can comment on this post’s thread instead, which is open to everyone.
Or you can use the free 7-day trial option below and then unsubscribe if you don’t like it or can’t afford it or whatever. I love you either way.
AFTER YEARS AS A FAT ACTIVIST, I AM NOW PRO-OZEMPIC - AND I TAKE IT MYSELF. AND I’M NOT SORRY
By Robin Wheeler
Recently some men I’m acquainted with—the hardcore troubadour types that haunt your local record stores—were gushing on Facebook about Arkansas singer-songwriter Jesse Welles. With simple acoustic guitar songs about hot-button subjects like ICE and corporate America’s greed, surely I would love Welles. I’ve spent the last 14 years researching and writing about Woody Guthrie, America’s original protest folk musician. Welles is the second coming of Woody, right?
No, he’s not.
My opinion led to a lot of dudes getting their beards knotted, accusing me of not listening well enough or knowing anything about protest music (Excuse me?!). And while I haven’t explored Welles’ full discography, his song titled “Ozempic” was enough to solidify my opinions:
Is your hunger a source of guilt and shame?
Did they tell you your DNA’s to blame?
Did they sell you an injection
Just to help stand your reflection?
Did the doctor recommend this novel way?
He goes on to describe the GLP-1 medication as “chemical-assisted self-starvation” and a fad propagated through “profiteering, carpet-bagging,” telling people taking the drug that they’re “lab rats.”
A year ago I would have been singing along. As a fat activist since the days of Marilyn Wann’s “Fat? So!” zine over thirty years ago, I’ve stood firm in my stance that intentional weight loss didn’t interest me, and probably shouldn’t interest most people. I paid my dues in the weight loss trenches, starting when I was four and my mother beat herself up for comforting me with cookies when my grandfather died around the same time my baby fat stopped being cute.
Diets were a central part of my life as a child in the 1970s and ‘80s. I remember seeing the weight loss meds, which I now know were basically speed, in my mother and grandmother’s cabinets.
One day I came home from grade school and grabbed a snack-size box of Sun Maid raisins.
“I’ll let you finish those,” my mom said, “but the doctor said you have to start a diet.”
I hadn’t even seen the doctor. And what did he have against nature’s candy? Weren’t raisins supposed to be good for me?
The solution came to me in third grade as my body rocketed into precocious puberty. I thought it would be a good, healthy idea to chew my food and savour the wonderful flavors and then spit it into a bowl so I could throw it away. All of the eating with none of the calories! Having the will power of a nine-year-old, I lasted one dinner.
2025 marked the 40th anniversary of my first attempt at Weight Watchers. I was in seventh grade and in constant motion. Every summer since first grade, I had played in a softball league. Middle school brought intramural volleyball and discovering that I was a natural on the tennis court. I’d ride my bike to the courts after school and, if I couldn’t find an opponent, I’d smack the fuzzy yellow balls against the practice wall with the round Jimmy Connors Wilson racquet I nabbed from a cousin.
But that was just the beginning of my perpetual motion. I regularly rode my bike to the record store, the library, friends homes, the public pool. My parents didn’t have any idea how far I would ride. They were just happy that I was exercising and not giving in to my natural propensity for laziness.
On weekends I went to the roller rink with my friends, looping over and over on the polished floor under disco lights until blisters grew on the bottoms of my flat feet. Every day I danced in my bedroom, and popped VHS tapes of “The 20-Minute Workout” into my VCR.
Being on Weight Watchers, where I was considered an adult client because I had gotten my period at age nine, I was eating around 1,000 calories a day, except on the days when hunger made me crack. I’d dive face-first into a package of Kraft Singles or a jar of crunchy peanut butter. Sometimes I compromised, filling myself with cold green beans straight out of the can.
Despite all of this, I plateaued with 145 pounds on my 5’3” frame, stalled at a size 14.
And so I proceeded into adulthood, yo-yoing between sizes 14 and 20, always aware that my thighs were thicker than my dad’s and a detriment to landing a boyfriend. Or so he told me when he noticed the thickness of my legs in shorts.
Turns out he was wrong. In my 20s I learned that there was no shortage of men who were a-ok with my man-sized legs. And I almost was, too, at times, but it didn’t stop me from always having weight loss hovering over my life.
After a failed postpartum diet attempt when I was 32, I quit. My body had done the unbelievable—it created a real-live human being. That helped me hate the vessel I was in a bit less, and I made a delicate peace. By then I had also, finally, been diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS). This provided insight into how I could be so active and barely lose weight even when I starved myself. It wasn’t great news, as there’s no cure for PCOS and treatment options are limited, as they are for most health issues that only strike people assigned female at birth. Still, knowing there was a biological reason for my size and that it wasn’t entirely my own fault helped me let go of the unrealistic ideas I had about how my body should be so I could move on and live my life.
Food was a huge part of that life. Cooking, dining, hosting parties—I loved it all and built a fulfilling career as a food writer, chef, and culinary instructor. [And she wrote about it here! And it’s good! -Jane] At the same time I further embraced the fat positive ethos: diet culture is inherently sexist, racist, and ableist. It preys on insecurity and inequity to get people to spend wild amounts of money chasing impossible dreams. Humans of all sizes deserve fair treatment that’s not based on their body sizes. That includes access to affordable clothing that fits, public seating that doesn’t put us at risk for injury, fair pricing and accommodations when flying, jobs without size discrimination, and health care beyond being told to lose weight.
And that is how my real problems started.
