As a Black woman, Serena Williams using weight loss injections saddened me

Since retiring from professional tennis in 2022, Serena Williams has certainly had her hands full.

From starting a makeup brand to welcoming her second child in 2023, the 23-time Grand Slam champion has kept herself busy with several new ventures. On Thursday, she announced her latest – being the ambassador of an injectable weight-loss drug. 

Serena, 43, appeared on US breakfast programme The Today Show to share that she had lost 31lbs (just over 14kg) using a GLP-1 type of medication with the help of healthcare company Ro. 

‘I thought it was really important just to come out and say it,’ she told the hosts, adding that she aimed to take away the stigma of some perceiving drugs to be a ‘lazy’ method of weight loss. 

Shortly after, a collaborative ad between the former athlete and the medical brand, which her husband Alexis Ohanian has invested in and serves on the board of, went live on their social media channels.

In it, Serena simulates injecting the drug into her stomach, saying in a voiceover ‘after kids, it’s the medicine my body needed,’ before she smiles at a graph showing her declining weight. 

As much as I know that what other people do with their bodies is completely their choice, I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of sadness upon seeing my forever favourite sportsperson becoming another public figure marketing being smaller as being better. 

Though I’m glad she’s feeling comfortable in herself, Serena’s weight-loss influencer pivot is further evidence of how pervasive skinny supremacy is in today’s culture – and how even those who’ve had incredible success in, and because of their bigger bodies, aren’t immune from societal pressures..

Since her entry into the public eye in the Nineties, the Compton-raised star has faced ongoing media debate over her body. 

For some commentators, her powerful, muscular physique was something to criticise – compared to other women in tennis, Serena was bigger and disrupted people’s view of what a sportswoman ‘should’ look like. 

Throughout the years, Serena has acknowledged her perceived uniqueness, even compared to her elder sister and fellow tennis star Venus. ‘When I was growing up, what was celebrated was different,’ she told British Vogue in 2020. 

‘Venus looked more like what is really acceptable: she has incredibly long legs, she’s really, really thin. I didn’t see people on TV that looked like me, who were thick. There wasn’t positive body image. It was a different age.’

While she may not have had role models with larger bodies while growing up, Serena ended up being this figure for countless people around the world. As a Black woman, she was especially significant for me.

But as much as she’s been a symbol of non-skinny excellence for decades, Serena is at first, a human. 

As GLP-1s have become more popular around the world, it seems as if messages of body acceptance regardless of size are becoming quieter, as people use ‘weight loss’ to be synonymous with general health.

Despite the popularity of the body positivity movement in the late 2010s and early 2020s, society has never fully dispelled the concept of slimness being something to aim for. 

With numbers of plus-size runway models decreasing, and formerly big content creators and celebrities shrinking, is it any surprise that someone whose body has been verbally dissected for most of her life decided to join the pack?

In the last year, it’s felt harder than ever to feel confident in my body with so many outside forces telling me how much better off my life would be if I weighed a little less. 

The pressure for someone in the public eye must be even greater – so I don’t judge Serena for doing what she felt was necessary to achieve this weight.

I just wish there wasn’t this pressure for anyone to be an ‘acceptable’ weight in the first place.

Weight-loss drugs are a tricky subject – they’re omnipresent not only in celebrity culture, but in real life. I know people whose lives have been changed for the better by using similar methods, with lower weight coming alongside increased mobility and less pressure on their joints. 

But with it being marketed so heavily, it flattens vital body diversity conversations that have thrived in the last decade to skinny being the goal for everybody, even if you’re perfectly healthy already. 

It’s clear these medications aren’t going anywhere – so what’s left to do for those who want to simply be satisfied in their bodies as they are?

It’s not Serena Williams’ job to be a representative of a body type, but in this era of GLP-1 prevalence, it appears to show that no-one is immune from skinny supremacy – even those whose brilliance and influence have come from their bodies being the opposite.

I’m glad I grew up with her as a role model for excellence in spite of not being skinny – and that doesn’t change now that she’s chosen to change her body. 

I just hope that we don’t lose the message we had of every body having value, whether or not you choose to change it.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Ross.Mccafferty@metro.co.uk. 

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