The new class of weight-loss drugs – Ozempic being the most famous – has brought a different dimension to the Oscars red carpet. Scrolling through a photo gallery of stars and critiquing their appearance now inevitably involves a side-chat about whether the celebrity in question is on Ozempic.

The tenor of the side-chat is moral, because fat is a moral issue for women: is this actress really skinny or has she cheated her way there? It’s the inverse of the way society judges the overweight and obese. Are they fat because they deserve to be, by virtue of their laziness or gluttony? Or do they have some sort of medical condition that might excuse them (the poor things)?

And the Oscar for best supporting act goes to … Ozempic!Credit: Getty

“The anorexia Oscars (Ozempic is only the method),” snarked Clara Jeffery, the editor of US news magazine Mother Jones, as she watched the A-listers twiggily parade themselves ahead of the ceremony on Monday. She had a point. Looking at the pics from the 96th Academy Awards, it was clear that being thin is back in vogue. Dresses hung off gaunt shoulders. Bosoms had disappeared.

Famous faces bore the cadaverous vibe of “Ozempic face” – a phenomenon among people on the drug, so common that New York dermatologists reportedly have a new line of business offering facial fat fillers to socialites who have become too drawn from the sudden weight loss.

We were kidding ourselves that the body-positivity movement would survive the advent of these drugs, which make skinniness attainable to anyone who can afford the injections and live with the (sometimes horrendous) side effects.

But one of the good things about the new generation of weight-loss drugs (and there are many good things about them) is that they upturn moral judgments about fatness.

Scientists and doctors have known for a long time that people carrying multiple extra kilos are very unlikely to lose and keep off significant amounts of weight through diet and exercise alone. The biology of overweight and obese people conspires against them, keeping them hungry while retarding their basal metabolic rate. This is why diets almost always fail, propping up a diet industry which depends upon its lack of success for its ongoing viability.

But society has not caught up with the science, and tends not to let fat people off so easily – especially not fat women.