How Have GLP-1s Affected the Modeling Industry?

Reported by Vogue.

Samantha Benjamin stepped away from modeling at 27, and she's blunt about why: the industry had become brutal again. After years of watching models whisper about Adderall, starvation diets, and unprescribed Ozempic, she watched something shift. "Girls are getting called fat. Nobody is mincing words," she says. The culprit? GLP-1 weight-loss medications have triggered a seismic return to extreme thinness on runways, undoing a decade of hard-won body diversity progress.

The numbers are stark. According to Vogue's Fall-Winter 2026 size inclusivity report, both mid- and plus-size representation hit their lowest levels since tracking began three years ago. Runway casting directors, designers, and modeling agents are all confirming the same trend: models have gotten demonstrably smaller. "I think it's a combination of GLP-1s and a pendulum swing to extreme thinness being an idealized look again," says Zoe Latta of fashion brand Eckhaus Latta. Since Ozempic's FDA approval for weight loss in 2021, one in eight Americans has used a GLP-1. The drug went from taboo whisper to casual industry currency—and models caught on. "When GLP-1s were introduced, models wondered if they needed to get skinnier to work for certain brands," explains curve model Grace Breuning. "Then a lot of models got skinnier."

The Illusion of Choice

What's insidious is how choice dissolves under pressure. Model and reality TV personality Brooks Nader has been candid about "micro-dosing" Ozempic, noting that when she lost weight, casting confirmations increased. "I was like, okay, I guess the industry likes me thinner," she said—despite her family and doctor warning her against improper use. Lottie Moss, Kate Moss's younger half-sister, was even more stark: her 2024 emergency room visit from Ozempic abuse didn't stop her from sensing identical industry demands a year later. The message is consistent: thinner = more work.

The tragedy isn't just health-related; it's aesthetic and cultural. Fashion's supposed guardians blame everyone but themselves. Designers cite market constraints, agents cite designer demands, casting directors cite client preferences—yet nobody acknowledges that they are the market. The result is homogenization masquerading as professionalism. "It's homogenized; it's not interesting; it's the same as everybody having veneers," Benjamin says. "So many of the things that people are now paying thousands of dollars for are just making things more boring."

The 2010s body-positivity moment—when Ashley Graham, Paloma Elsesser, and Tess Holliday shifted conversations around size—created momentum that briefly felt real. But it was never structural change; it was tokenism. "Brands used them to catch this wave of energy without producing garments that could fit them," says Kyle Hagler, founder of No Smoking: Management and Consultancy Firm. Now, with GLP-1s offering an easier path to the industry's preferred body, that era feels almost quaint. The question isn't whether models should use these medications—it's whether anyone in positions of power will admit that their casting preferences, not market demand, drive the problem.

The modeling industry has proven it can kill girls in pursuit of thinness (remember 2006-2007?) and survive. It learned nothing then, and it's learning nothing now.

Read the original at Vogue.