Women's Health has published a long report on the telehealth GLP-1 boom that names the celebrity faces attached to it: the platform Ro is endorsed by Serena Williams and Charles Barkley, and rival Hims & Hers ran a Super Bowl ad the magazine describes as painting GLP-1 drugs as the ultimate solution to weight loss. Neither endorsement is the story. What the report puts next to them is.

The drugs in question are GLP-1 weight-loss medications, sold under names including Wegovy, and the platforms marketing them are now a very large business. Women's Health cites an estimate that the U.S. telehealth market will reach $140.7 billion by 2030, up from $17.9 billion in 2020.

Why the ads bother the experts

It is not the volume of advertising that concerns the researchers quoted, it is what the ads promise. "Having direct-to-consumer marketing of pharmaceuticals was a terrible idea, and this is just the next level of bad," internist Keith Roach, MD, of Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian told the magazine, noting that the marketing shows thin people doing great things and feeling great.

Telehealth companies also are not required to list GLP-1 side effects the way pharmaceutical companies are, according to researcher Ateev Mehrotra, MD, of the Brown University School of Public Health. Telehealth researcher Julia Ivanova, PhD, adds that startup ads sometimes attach the same stock photo to multiple different patient statements, and that one company, MedVi, used AI to invent doctors who do not exist.

The influencer version of the same problem

Ivanova extends the point to creators paid to post. "When you see your favorite influencer being like, 'I've injected this and now I've lost 10 pounds,' she's not talking about the issues that she's faced," she says, questioning whether a company paying thousands of people across TikTok, Instagram and YouTube can police what any of them say.

She describes targeted follow-up texts she receives from Hims & Hers offering weight loss from $149 a month as "predatory," in her opinion. That is a researcher's judgment, not a finding, and the article presents it as one.

What the screening actually catches

The reporting's most useful thread is not about celebrities at all. One woman profiled, 37 and 118 pounds at 5-foot-4, says she overstated her weight on a questionnaire and was approved by a nurse within 20 minutes, with no photos required.

Another, taking the Wegovy pill through Hers, says she has lost 20 pounds in two months and has never spoken to a provider. Mehrotra notes there is no rule limiting why the medication can be prescribed.

The open question

Mehrotra still says he is thankful more Americans can reach these drugs, and Roach says telehealth ordering suits people who are overweight or obese with metabolic problems such as fatty liver, a diagnosis that may need blood work and imaging these platforms cannot order. Ivanova's worry is simpler: long-term effects have not been well studied, and the marketing is running well ahead of that.