Willow Health, Body-Dysmorphia, and the Intentional Shaming of Young Girls
- Tara Lee Clasen
- Sep 22, 2025
- 8 min read
Updated: Dec 11, 2025
A young girl grabs an acai bowl from the freezer. She takes a single bite and pushes the bowl away. She walks over to a mirror and holds a string bikini up to her body. This isn’t a public service announcement of what a severe eating disorder looks like. It is an ad for Willow Health, an online prescription drug company aiming its marketing at very young, thin girls.
Someone holds a bottle of injectable drugs in front of an empty refrigerator. A girl named Sam is “not playing. “ She only has 8-weeks to look her best at her friend’s wedding. To “get in shape” and “absolutely serve” in wedding photos, she began Willow Health's GLP-1’s. She feared needles, but when she saw “how cute” the medication tablets were, it was “an instant YES!”
At the end of this commercial, the drug company throws in a line about how she finally likes how she is eating. And that last line is how they seek to validate the rest of this commercial. They want you to think, “Oh, it was really about her health the whole time.”
Still another commercial shows two thin, young girls in cute two-piece workout outfits. One gives the other medical advice, saying that since “you clearly don’t have a ton to lose” — the emphasis on a ton — that she could take weight loss pills instead of the injections. And that she herself will take this medication before she goes on vacation.
In my book, The Elemental Woman, I address these ads by saying this:
“A woman should never feel shame for struggling or having a condition that makes weight loss difficult and choosing medication. But some online drug companies are now running devastating commercials aimed at very young, thin girls, telling them that to get rid of a “few pounds before a wedding” they should inject themselves with their drugs. These ads—by intention—create body-dysmorphia and therefore, lifelong customers. We cannot teach all young girls that their bodies are incapable of finding balance, a message that cuts off the larger health-care journey.”
Like Botox providers telling young girls that they should begin “baby Botox” in their early twenties to keep future wrinkles away, Willow Health is targeting girls whose brains are still forming. If companies can sell these girls shame, if they can sell these girls body-dysmorphia, they can sell these girls “the solution” as medication and they can do so for life.
It is especially important to realize that these companies are not simply selling weight loss drugs; they are mainly targeting girls who have been—or would be—turned away by their regular medical provider or even another online drug company.
I am not suggesting that a woman hasn’t been turned away from a weight-loss drug that she could have or should have received based on other specific needs. And please note, these companies will sell to anyone who reaches out, and so on their roster will be women beyond the young, thin girls that they are targeting. When questioned and needing to justify their company, they will point to other cases, anything that confuses their real narrative.
Willow Health is not the only company like this. I have begun to see copycat companies and ads running on Facebook and Instagram. Young girls modeling bikinis and holding weight loss drugs. Seductively—and I am not joking here—ripping off the injection cap with their teeth and injecting their body, heart emojis popping up on the screen. An ad or reel that shows a young girl getting her “lip flipped” or entire face altered with a Botox injection could also follow these weight loss ads.
Young girls see Botox ads on signs as they walk down the street. Teenage girls see Botox ads at companies that are directly marketing other services to them.
Those of us who grew up in the 90s know what body-shaming feels like. It is a mistake to think that time is over and things for young girls are better now. Yes, social media also carries some body-positive messages, and those messages were not as available in the 90s. But once a young girl enters, what I think of as, the “Facebook Loop of Shame,” they are not only seeing damaging ads, but they are stuck in a never-ending loop of before and after pictures, body-composition advice, plate-to-plate calorie comparisons, advice on making their waste smaller, how to prevent wrinkles, how to change the shape of the face with injections, how to make the face look more “uplifted” without the use of injections, and on and on and on. A never-ending loop running through their feeds and running through their hearts and minds.
And still, other weight loss companies have chosen another sales method that does not seem true or healthy. These companies have a message that they—the online drug company—is on their side when other people—other women—and other companies are not. These ads again are targeting women who need or want to lose weight but fear another place may turn them down.
These companies sell women the idea that others are judging their journey or want to gate keep weight loss. That others think weight-loss drugs are the “easy way out” and will shame their choices. And whereas the online world is full of bickering—often intentional bickering aimed at selling a different product or social media account—I want to call out this type of advertising.
In real life, I do not know a woman who has bad things to say about another woman’s weight-loss journey.
Here, we need to reflect because it is also very important that drug companies do not own any health care topic. And what they may call judgment could be very important, valid information. Some women may lose weight by working on the liver health through shifts in the diet, coffee and alcohol use, using well-studied supplements, herbal medicine, and so forth. Some women will lose weight by adopting mindful eating practices, receiving counseling and emotional therapy, lessening anxiety, eating more plant-based foods, hitting nutrient goals, working on their digestive system health and nervous system health, working activity on hormone health, changing the way they workout, and adopting lifestyle practices that alter and even heal systemic inflammation.
You cannot hear a 30-second clip of a woman talking about what she did for weight-loss and apply it directly to your life and your needs. Before and after pictures do not give you a valid slice of someone’s health-care story and, as I say in The Elemental Woman book, before and after pictures are not valid ways to make individual health-care choices about your own body. This message is not shaming anyone who uses weight-loss drugs. It is just important that we all consider well-rounded, holistic advice because that affects the whole of our lives. And alternative information is not automatically judgmental. I do not believe that in real-life, what these online drug companies want you to think—that others are judging you—is accurate.
These sales techniques are damaging to women and cause us to feel further separation from one another. If they believe in their products, they should just advertise the benefits of the product, with no added emotional filler.
I do not know how to fix all of this. What I do know is that girls need to hear other messages—vigorously. They need to hear from adult women that they should step away from this confusion and turn inwards.
Yes, I have a book that discusses weight and body-image holistically, through the lens of Eastern Medicine, but that in no way means that I seek to shame any woman for any reason. As a physical medicine provider specializing in TMJ pain, jaw pain, face pain, neck pain, and pelvic floor pain and dysfunction, I can promise you that these shameful messages absolutely show up as pain inside the physical body. We have to pay attention to this!
Self-love is a developing adventure and not a simple destination. Young girls should not be hyper-focused on the appearance of the physical body. As adult women, we can learn to pay attention to our emotional needs surrounding our physical bodies from a place of ease. In this culture, that will take work, serious self-reflection, and reflecting on the shameful messaging lingering behind the ads and reels we see on Facebook and Instagram.
Living health and wellness takes getting out of your own head and talking to other women in your community and talking in-person to holistic health-care providers.
Thank you for taking the time to read this post!
Peace and Love,
Tara
Want to Know More?
I have more posts coming soon,. Stay tuned!
Check out my books on health and wellness!
The Elemental Woman
A Conversation for the Modern Western Woman Inspired by the Healing Wisdom of the Ancient Eastern Sage
Food & Mood Journal
A tracking guide to connect the food you eat, the emotions you feel, and increase the feeling of deep self-love
Mindful Movement Journal
A tracking guide to connect the motions you make, the emotions you feel, and increase the feeling of deep self-love
Basic Ayurveda
The Elemental Woman Supplement Guide
About the author:
Since 2004, Tara Lee Clasen has been assisting women on their healing adventures. As a woman-focused physical medicine provider, also trained in Eastern medicine, she knows transformation is possible and knows that with reflection and self-love, your future is full of bright possibilities.
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