What Contributes to Appetite?

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GLP-1 drugs offer an opportunity to reflect on primary desires and frustrations.

Ozempic and similar medications may represent a Victorian morality culture that sees desire as a problem.

Overcoming base desires like appetite reflects a fantasy for life without tension.

Ozempic has been a breakthrough for many, correcting eating disorders and managing blood sugar, weight, and more. A recent New Yorker article highlights an under-discussed bio-psychological side effect of GLP-1 drugs: the weakening of desire overall. In Dhruv Khullar’s piece, “Can Ozempic Cure Addiction?”, he argues that GLP-1 drugs work as “moderation molecules,” reducing primary desires for things like food or alcohol, giving us quick and easy dopamine.

One interesting secondary effect is that this moderation molecule has an alter ego: a “desire dampener” that, according to Khullar, can “go too far.” He notes anecdotal reports of lower sex drives or decreased interest and motivation. As Sarah Kawasaki at Penn State Health observes, “when we take a medicine in the hope that it will curb a particular desire, we’re meddling with a complex system.” These drugs may not distinguish between healthy and unhealthy desires—they may just dampen desire altogether, which some may see as a solution.

The Problem of No Desire

As a psychotherapist, my first impulse is to consider the impact of a life with less desire. Is it desirable, or might it create new problems? Screening tools for depression ask about desire and motivation: Someone with low or absent desire—to get out of bed, meet a partner, pursue a career, or enjoy a meal—may meet criteria for clinical depression. Many clients wish to desire more, not less; some have lost the spark that drives work or relationships, and desiring less could be catastrophic.

Therapy can help us reclaim or rediscover desire. It can revive dormant drives or help rebuild desire from scratch—finding new people, ideas, or pursuits that make life engaging.

The Problem of Substitutive Desire

Drugs like Ozempic may distill core desires or underlying frustrations. Many compulsions—food, sugar, alcohol, drugs—are secondary or substitutive desires, developed as solutions to early-life stressors. Growing up in a high-conflict household, for example, retreating to the kitchen to snack might have been a form of self-soothing. As adults, this can color our relationship with food, making it a psychological balm rather than nutrition, leading to overeating.

Eliminating the physiological urge may create psychological space. Without cravings, what remains? Does desire take another form, or do we gain insight into primary frustrations? This can be a powerful therapeutic exercise, revealing restlessness or existential unease previously masked by chocolate or whisky. It fosters a meta-cognitive view of the self, showing habits as quick fixes for deeper needs.

Of course, we don’t yet know whether this leads to new insight or whether dampening desire may extend psychologically, eroding curiosity and self-reflection. Some may accept less struggle as sufficient; others may long to reconnect with their desiring selves.

The Moralization of Desire

Ozempic culture, like broader health optimization culture, moralizes desire. Urges are coded as bad or problematic. Appetite is something to correct. Acting on craving is seen as weakness or moral failure.

This echoes a Victorian sensibility: restraint, moderation, and self-control are valued, while succumbing to biology marks weakness. Online rhetoric amplifies this, often with gendered messages of self-mastery and strength.

There are partial truths here. Freud’s concept of sublimation describes redirecting drives into socially acceptable forms—a fascination with gore might become surgical specialization, or obsessive snacking could become a focus on nutrition tracking.

What Contributes to Appetite?

Take our Emotional Eating Test

Find a therapist near me

The danger lies in pathologizing desire. Strict moderation may suit some, but for others it produces new fixations, leaving life unsalted and without flavor.

The Fantasy of Life Without Friction

The fantasy is a life without friction, where urges no longer demand wrestling. The biological self is tamed, and the self appears smooth, optimized, and free from contradiction or excess. But is this the kind of person we want to become—or the kind we want to marry, befriend, or raise?

Dhruv Khullar. "Can Ozempic Cure Addiction?" New Yorker, Feb. 9 2026. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/02/16/can-ozempic-cure-addiction

Freud, S. (1905). Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905). The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume VII (1901-1905): A Case of Hysteria, Three Essays on Sexuality and Other Works, 123-246

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