GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, once prescribed mainly for diabetes and obesity, are increasingly being used by young women in college, including some preparing for competitive sorority recruitment, according to a report examining the trend.
Market research shows GLP-1 medications — including semaglutide (Ozempic and Wegovy) and tirzepatide (Mounjaro and Zepbound) — are growing fastest among adults under 40, particularly young women. A 2024 analysis published in JAMA found that 162,439 young adults ages 18 to 25 received at least one dispensed GLP-1 prescription in 2023, with women making up 76.4% of those patients. That analysis included prescriptions for both diabetes and weight management.
The 2025 Monitoring the Future survey found that 2% of students in grades 8, 10 and 12 reported using a prescription GLP-1 medication, while another 2% said they had used one without a prescription.
Pressure During Rush
A feature in The Cut, titled “The Secret ‘Ozempidemic’ on Sorority Row,” reported that GLP-1 drugs have quietly become part of campus culture at some elite universities, particularly during sorority recruitment. Three female students, interviewed under pseudonyms, said they used compounded semaglutide or tirzepatide to improve their chances during rush and to meet what they described as an increasingly thin beauty standard.
“For many young women who have just arrived on campus, thinness feels like the ticket into the best possible college experience,” one student said.
“I didn’t realize that someone who was 19 and also not super-overweight could get on it. I was like, ‘I gotta hop on,'” another student said.
A former sorority recruiter said: “It’s like, ‘Well, there’s no excuse for people to be fat because they could just get a GLP-1.'”
Medical Tool Turned ‘Aesthetic Hack’
Jay Campbell, a longevity and peptide expert and bestselling author, told Fox News Digital that the drugs were designed to address a metabolic crisis but have been “hijacked as a cosmetic shortcut.”
“For someone who’s metabolically dysregulated, they are a genuine medical intervention,” Campbell said. “But to a 20-year-old sorority member with a normal BMI, they look like an aesthetic hack in a syringe.”
Campbell said sorority culture’s emphasis on social visibility accelerates the trend. “Everyone is looking at everyone’s Instagram,” he said. “When one girl drops 15 pounds in six weeks, that news spreads through the sorority house faster than any diet fad in history, because the results are fast, dramatic, and don’t require the discipline of nutrition or training.”
He added that college-aged women already tend to have “high body-image sensitivity,” which is now amplified by what he called “a full-scale social contagion.” Campbell noted that many of these women grew up already navigating disordered relationships with food, and the medication “can play on their insecurities.”
Risks for Non-Obese Users
Campbell noted that in clinical studies of people taking the drugs for obesity, fat mass generally accounts for more of the weight lost than lean mass. But he warned that a healthy 20-year-old who is not obese has far less metabolic and muscular reserve to draw from.
Rapid weight loss without sufficient protein intake or resistance training can result in a greater proportion of lean muscle loss, he said, and can contribute to changes sometimes called “Ozempic face” and “Ozempic body.”
Campbell suggested students ask themselves “honestly why you’re taking a medication designed for a disease you don’t have” if they are not obese or metabolically compromised. He said preventing muscle loss requires “real protein intake, not a protein bar as an afterthought, and resistance training,” adding: “Skip both, and you will absolutely lose muscle tissue that you cannot easily get back at 20 years old.”
Fertility and Mental Health Concerns
Campbell also flagged fertility considerations that he said most college students don’t think about. GLP-1 medications should not be used for weight loss during pregnancy; semaglutide labeling advises stopping Wegovy at least two months before a planned pregnancy. Tirzepatide has been shown to reduce the effectiveness of oral hormonal contraceptives during treatment initiation and dose increases, and the FDA advises using an alternate contraceptive method for four weeks during those periods.
Mental health also deserves attention, Campbell said, particularly for young adults with depression, anxiety, eating disorders or a history of using food to cope emotionally. The FDA has found no increased risk of suicidal thoughts or behavior tied to GLP-1 medications, but patients are advised to report any new or worsening mood symptoms to their prescriber.
“Nobody knows what 10 or 20 years of GLP-1 use looks like in a woman who started at 20 with a normal body weight, because that population barely existed in the clinical trials,” Campbell said. “Consider this a reminder to stop treating a powerful metabolic medication like a lifestyle accessory.”
He added that the drugs “will not fix a broken metabolic foundation or whatever underlying reason a 20-year-old feels she needs to lose weight in the first place,” and said young women in high-visibility social settings are often early adopters of anything that changes their appearance quickly.
Campbell stressed that any treatment should involve a qualified prescriber who evaluates a patient’s medical history and goals, provides monitoring, adjusts dosage as needed, and helps manage side effects.
Fox News Digital reached out to the National Panhellenic Conference and to GLP-1 manufacturers for comment.
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