We’ve all heard it — “I’ve tried everything.” It’s become the emotional backbone of a new advertising wave sweeping through social media and TV screens. Tearful confessions, tired clichés, and token imagery of women exhausted by their endless quest for thinness — walking miles, juicing kilos of celery, counting every crumb — only to sigh, “nothing worked.”
And just as the music swells and the lighting softens, the real pitch begins. The scene cuts to a white-coated doctor’s office — the universal symbol of credibility — and suddenly, the solution is revealed: a prescription. A weekly injection. A miracle drug. The woman smiles, relieved. “This time, I’m doing it for me.”
Please.
What we’re witnessing is the rebirth of diet culture, cleverly rebranded and repackaged to bypass Australia’s advertising restrictions. Gone are the diet shakes, appetite suppressant pills, and 1990s-style “fat blasters.” In their place stands a new kind of marketing — sleek, sympathetic, and medically dressed — but with the same manipulative undertones. The implication remains the same: if you can’t lose weight through impossible methods, then pharmaceuticals are your only option.
The New Face of an Old Problem
These ads are not about empowerment. They are about profit. And they are landing in the laps of a generation that’s already more body-conscious, anxious, and hyper-exposed to appearance ideals than any before it.
As a nutritionist, I’m seeing this firsthand. Teenage girls, barely out of high school, are walking into clinics distraught because their bodies don’t match the digitally filtered, drug-assisted ideals plastered across their feeds. Or worse, the ideals of their parents. They’re terrified of food, labelling carbs as villains, believing hunger is weakness, and viewing “thin” as synonymous with “healthy.”
Our culture has reignited an obsession that was only just starting to fade — only now, it’s cloaked in clinical respectability. When doctors and influencers alike peddle the idea that a weekly injection can “fix” what diet and exercise supposedly can’t, we are teaching an entire generation that biology can be bypassed, and self-discipline outsourced to pharmaceuticals.
The Real Science of Weight and Health
Let’s be very clear: carrying excess body fat is not the problem — it’s a symptom. A symptom of deeper metabolic dysfunction, driven by the complex interplay of hormones, inflammation, sleep disruption, chronic stress, and poor nutrition quality. It’s not about how much you eat; it’s about what’s happening inside your body that determines how that food is used, stored, and metabolised.
The prevailing narrative treats body fat as the enemy — something to be starved, shrunk, or medicated away — but this completely misses the point. You don’t “treat” body fat any more than you treat smoke from a fire. You find the source of the imbalance, you correct it, and the symptoms resolve themselves.
Weight loss is not about aesthetics. It’s about restoring metabolic health. That means improving insulin sensitivity, stabilising blood glucose, reducing inflammation, and supporting your body’s natural ability to burn fat efficiently. When you do this, the weight takes care of itself — without drugs, deprivation, or punishment.
Eating Well Is Not Punishment
Eating healthfully isn’t a sentence. It’s an act of self-love — a daily decision to nourish, not deprive, your body.
Exercise isn’t a punishment for what you ate. It’s your “me time” — a tool for stress relief, mental clarity, endorphins and long-term vitality.
And that relentless “food noise” — the constant thoughts about cravings, hunger, and what you should or shouldn’t eat — is not a failure of willpower. It’s a physiological response to insulin resistance. When your cells stop responding properly to insulin, your blood sugar spikes and crashes, driving appetite and fatigue. It’s not about weakness; it’s about chemistry. And the good news? It’s reversible with the right advice — not the loudest advice.
Health Literacy, Not Hype
When people say, “I’ve tried everything,” what they often mean is, “I’ve tried everything that’s been sold to me.” From juice cleanses to low-fat fads, detox teas to juices, shakes, and now, pharmaceutical shortcuts — it’s all the same cycle of quick fixes built on poor science and poorer understanding.
This is not a failure of the individual. It’s a failure of the system — of an industry that profits from confusion and low health literacy. Even many doctors and governing bodies, caught up in the same outdated paradigms, perpetuate the myth that obesity is simply a matter of willpower and calories.
But human biology is far more complex. Real health is not achieved through injections, starvation, or shame. It’s achieved through education, empowerment, and small, consistent actions that strengthen your metabolism rather than suppress it.
The Real Choice
If “I’ve tried everything” means you’ve tried every fad diet, detox plan, and social media trend, then no — you haven’t tried everything. Because true change doesn’t come from extremes. It comes from balance. It comes from understanding the “why” behind your body’s signals and learning how to work with it instead of waging war against it.
So, before you’re tempted by the next glossy ad claiming that relief comes in a syringe, pause. Ask yourself who benefits from that narrative — you, or the billion-dollar pharmaceutical company behind it?
Because real health doesn’t come with a disclaimer or a monthly subscription. It comes from knowledge, consistency, and the courage to reject what’s easy in favour of what’s true.
