selena gomez

Commenting on someone's body should be off limits. Whether someone loses weight, gains weight or a stranger is larger than average or smaller than average, it's generally ideal to keep the opinion of someone else's body to yourself. But it seems that this is a hard lesson for people to learn, especially when it comes to celebrities.

Selena Gomez is often under scrutiny because of her appearance. Growing up in the public eye, people know she's has always been on the thinner side and feel obligated to point out when she gains weight without taking into account that she's no longer a 14-year-old child. The speculation and comments had reached such a point that Gomez decided to tackle it head on.

The "Love You Like a Love Song" singer took to social media and addressed her changing appearance in February 2023 where she explained that her lupus medications cause excess water retention.

"When I’m taking [the medicine], I tend to hold a lot of water weight and that happens very normally, and then when I'm off of it I tend to kind of lose weight," the star says in a resurfaced video of her TikTok live.

But for some reason, viewers once again seem to feel the need to discuss how thin she has gotten after seeing her on the red carpet for the SAG Awards. Several people accused the star of being on Ozempic, a diabetes medication that has been controversially used in recent years to double as a weight loss drug.

When an X account dedicated to updates on the star posted a side by side of Gomez last year and this year exclaiming that she's "aging like fine wine" and critics wasted no time to jump into the comments, with one writing, "I don't think ozempic is good for her lupus...."

Another writes, "Ozempic at work. I’ll put her on my Deadpool list," while another says, "Sag Awards proved all the Hollywood starlets are on Ozempic."

Many of the medications used to treat lupus cause weight gain, especially prolonged use of steroids like prednisone, which is often prescribed to treat lupus flares. As Gomez explained in 2023, the medications cause weight gain often through water retention and not an actual increase in fat deposits, so it makes sense that when she is no longer taking the medications, she drops the weight quickly.

The general public has also gone after Lizzo for her slimmer appearance in recent months, which has left some of Lizzo's fans confused. In previous years she was consistently attacked for being "too fat" while not being afraid to show off her larger figure. The singer became vegan in 2020, increased her dedication to working out and drinking plenty of water, and slowly began shedding the pounds over the years. Once her weight loss was evident, she too has been accused of using Ozempic by those who have not been following along on her five-year weight loss journey.

This sort of stuff doesn't just happen to celebrities either. You'll notice comments on social media about a stranger's body or witness it happen in the wild. I recently encountered this at a local nail salon when the woman was finishing up my manicure and during the hand massage portion decided that it would be the appropriate time to tell me I needed to eat something because, "your hands are so boney they're hurting me to massage you." Seems like a strange thing to say to someone who hasn't left a tip yet, but also strange to say to a stranger you've never met before, or to anyone at all.

Like Gomez, anyone could be going through something you know nothing about, whether it be an autoimmune disorder, which Gomez and I have in common, an eating disorder, chemotherapy, PCOS, or insulin resistance. There are many reasons people's bodies are thin, fat, or fluctuate but unless that person specifically asks for commentary on their physique, it's rarely ever appropriate to opine on someone else's body.