When a Health Trend Reaches the Treatment Room

The Wellness Grove

Notes from the Treatment Room

An occasional professional column exploring emerging research, continuing education, industry language, and the questions that surface when science meets real-world beauty and wellness practice.

When a Health Trend Reaches the Treatment Room

GLP-1s, changing bodies, and the responsibility of the beauty and wellness industries

OP-ED

By Chantilly Whittle Founder, Chantilly Bonita LLC | Louisiana-Licensed Esthetician & Licensed Massage Therapist

The July 2026 issue of the Journal of Clinical and Aesthetic Dermatology landed on my desk, and one article immediately caught my attention: Aesthetic Considerations for Preventing and Managing GLP-1 Receptor Agonist–Related Facial Aging.

Not because I was looking for a new service to add to a menu.

I was interested in what happens when emerging medical and aesthetic research moves from the journal page into the treatment room—and eventually into the language we use with clients.

GLP-1 medications have become difficult to separate from the larger cultural conversation surrounding diabetes, obesity, weight management, health, celebrity, beauty, and body size. Some medications in this class can support substantial weight loss, and the beauty and wellness industries have been quick to notice the visible changes that may accompany it (National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases [NIDDK], n.d.).

Social media was even quicker to give one of those changes a name:

“Ozempic face.”

It is memorable.

It is marketable.

It is also far less nuanced than the people whose faces we are talking about.

When the Research and the Treatment Room Meet

Bommareddy, Fabi, and Muniz (2026) discuss facial changes associated with rapid or substantial weight loss during GLP-1 receptor agonist use, including facial adipose-tissue loss, volume depletion, laxity, and changes that may contribute to an older-appearing face. The authors also explore the role facial adipose tissue may play beyond simple volume and propose an individualized, staged approach to aesthetic management.

The article is worth reading.

It is also worth reading carefully.

It is a special communication, not a randomized clinical trial establishing one treatment pathway for every person taking a GLP-1 medication. It contributes to a developing professional conversation by bringing together existing research, clinical observations, and the authors’ proposed approach (Bommareddy et al., 2026).

The wider literature on substantial weight loss offers useful context. A 2024 systematic review found that major weight loss following medical and surgical bariatric interventions may produce meaningful changes in facial soft tissue and visible aging. The authors also identified limitations in the evidence and emphasized the need for more research distinguishing medication-specific effects from changes associated with substantial weight loss more broadly (Jafar et al., 2024).

That distinction matters.

Professional literature can help us better understand what may be happening beneath the surface without becoming a script that we automatically apply to every client.

Research should expand our curiosity. It should not automatically become a treatment menu.

A Visible Change Is Not Automatically a New Flaw

There is a familiar pattern in beauty and wellness.

A physical characteristic becomes recognizable.

We give it a name.

The name becomes a problem.

The problem becomes a market.

Then the market begins explaining to people why they should be concerned about something they may not have considered a flaw yesterday.

“Ozempic face” fits into that cycle almost too easily.

A person may be taking medication as part of treatment for obesity, diabetes, or another health concern under the guidance of an appropriately qualified provider. They may have experienced meaningful changes in their health, mobility, comfort, or quality of life.

They may also look in the mirror and miss the fullness they once had in their cheeks.

Those experiences are not contradictory.

Research following substantial weight loss suggests that body image, identity, self-perception, and experiences of stigma can remain complicated even when someone values the health or weight-related outcomes they have experienced. Much of that research comes from bariatric populations rather than people specifically using GLP-1 medications, so it offers context rather than a direct description of every GLP-1 client (Jiretorn et al., 2024).

That nuance matters in the treatment room.

A client does not have to regret losing weight simply because they miss something about their previous appearance.

They do not have to dislike their former body in order to appreciate their current one.

They do not have to be pleased with every physical change because other changes have benefited their health.

And they do not need us to decide how they should feel about any of it.

The Insecurity Economy Has Good Timing

There is an uncomfortable question here for those of us working in beauty and wellness:

When does responding to a client’s concern become teaching the client to have one?

Those are not always the same thing.

Research has already begun examining stigma associated specifically with GLP-1-assisted weight loss. In one 2024 experimental study involving evaluations of women, GLP-1 use was associated with more negative judgments when medication-assisted weight loss was perceived as taking a “shortcut” (Post & Persky, 2024).

That study does not tell us how every person using these medications is perceived, nor should its findings be generalized across every gender or circumstance.

But it does add something important to the conversation.

People using GLP-1 medications can be judged from multiple directions.

Too large.

Too small.

Lost weight too quickly.

Used medication.

Did not lose it the “right” way.

Now their face looks different.

Now there is another thing to correct.

At some point, beauty professionals have to ask whether we are responding to insecurity—or helping create it.

I believe we can acknowledge an aesthetic concern without manufacturing shame around it.

That distinction may become increasingly important as this market grows.

Where Esthetic Care Fits

Skin quality and facial structure are related, but they are not interchangeable.

That is familiar territory for estheticians.

We can meaningfully work with hydration, barrier function, texture, tone, comfort, and the overall condition and appearance of the skin. Individual practitioners may also have other modalities available to them depending on education, credentials, professional setting, and applicable regulations.

But a facial cannot become a promise to replace substantial structural volume loss simply because there is now a marketable phrase attached to it.

The JCAD article discusses fillers, biostimulators, fat grafting, energy-based devices, and other medical or advanced-aesthetic interventions. Understanding those conversations can still be useful even when the intervention itself does not belong in an esthetician’s treatment room (Bommareddy et al., 2026).

It gives us context.

It may help us understand why a client’s concern cannot be resolved with another layer of topical product.

It may help us communicate more clearly with adjacent professionals.

And it may reinforce when the most useful thing we can offer is an honest conversation about expectations.

The client’s needs may also evolve.

A person actively experiencing substantial weight change today may not have the same priorities six months from now. Their skin may change. Their goals may change. Their relationship with their appearance may change.

Sometimes our contribution is treatment.

Sometimes it is expectation-setting.

Sometimes it is collaboration.

Sometimes it is referral.

And sometimes it is allowing enough space for someone to experience change before immediately presenting a list of corrections.

Then I Read It as a Massage Therapist

This is where the article sent my thoughts somewhere beyond the face.

I am both an esthetician and a massage therapist.

When we discuss substantial weight change only through the lens of facial aging, it is easy to forget that the person did not experience that change only from the neck up.

They are bringing a changing body into the treatment room as well.

There is not an established body of evidence telling massage therapists that a person using a GLP-1 medication requires a specific pressure, bolster, position, or style of massage.

I do not think we should invent one.

What we already have is something more useful: professional standards centered on informed consent, individualized care, client comfort, privacy, truthful representation, scope, and the client’s ability to modify or discontinue treatment.

The standards of both AMTA and NCBTMB emphasize principles such as autonomy, appropriate draping, communication, professional limitations, truthful marketing, and responsible referral (American Massage Therapy Association [AMTA], 2010; National Certification Board for Therapeutic Massage & Bodywork [NCBTMB], 2017).

That foundation gives us plenty to work with.

If someone’s body has changed substantially since I last worked with them, I do not need to create a diagnosis around that change.

I do need to remain responsive.

A bolster that worked previously may feel different now.

Pressure preferences may need revisiting.

Positioning may need adjustment.

Draping preferences may change.

Comfort may change.

The client may wish to talk about their changing body.

They may not.

These are not established “GLP-1 effects.”

They are reminders that yesterday’s treatment plan should never become today’s assumption.

That is simply individualized massage therapy.

Touch Does Not Require Commentary

Massage professionals also work within a culture that comments on bodies constantly.

Weight loss is often treated as public information.

People notice it.

Congratulate it.

Question it.

Ask how much.

Ask how.

Ask whether someone is “done.”

Assume health from appearance.

Assume illness from appearance.

Assume happiness.

For a person already adjusting to substantial physical change, the treatment table does not need to become one more place where their body is evaluated without invitation.

Research in post-bariatric populations has documented complicated experiences involving body image, stigma, self-perception, and identity following substantial weight loss. Qualitative work involving people treated with GLP-1 receptor agonists has likewise found varied psychological experiences rather than one universal response (Jiretorn et al., 2024; Pierret et al., 2025).

Neither body of research tells us how the individual client in front of us feels.

That is precisely the point.

Sometimes the most respectful response is not to make weight the subject of the session unless the client chooses to make it one.

We can notice what affects treatment without narrating someone’s body back to them.

There is a difference.

Massage Therapy Does Not Need a GLP-1 Miracle Service

Where public interest goes, marketing usually follows.

Massage and wellness have never been immune to exaggerated language.

Detoxing.

Flushing fat.

Boosting metabolism.

Sculpting.

Melting.

Draining.

Resetting.

The visibility of GLP-1 medications creates fertile ground for another round of those claims.

Massage therapy has enough legitimate value without attaching promises to it that we cannot support.

AMTA’s ethical standards call for truthful representation of services and professional abilities, while NCBTMB standards likewise emphasize responsible practice, informed consent, and awareness of professional limitations (AMTA, 2010; NCBTMB, 2017).

We do not need to promise that massage will accelerate medication-related weight loss.

We do not need to claim that we can “flush” a medication from someone’s system.

We do not need to promise that massage will tighten significant loose skin.

We do not need to position skilled touch as a substitute for medical care.

Massage already has something legitimate to offer.

Skilled touch.

Comfort.

Responsive positioning.

Time.

An opportunity to receive care without being required to explain or perform satisfaction with a changing body.

Those things do not need inflated claims to have value.

There Is No Single GLP-1 Client

There is another reason our industry’s language deserves scrutiny.

Much of the beauty marketing surrounding facial aging still imagines a very specific client: usually a cisgender woman whose primary goal is to appear younger and conventionally feminine.

Our treatment rooms are more diverse than that.

Women may use these medications.

Men may use them.

Transgender and nonbinary people may use them.

Our clients arrive with different ages, health histories, identities, aesthetic preferences, relationships with aging, and relationships with their own bodies.

The same physical change may therefore mean something entirely different from one person to another.

One client may want fuller cheeks.

Another may prefer the definition created by losing facial volume.

One may describe a change as aging.

Another may simply describe it as change.

For someone else, facial shape or body composition may intersect with gender expression in ways we cannot understand simply by looking at them.

We do not need to anticipate every possible experience.

We can allow clients to tell us what matters to them.

A feature does not become a defect because it fails to fit our personal definition of youthful, masculine, feminine, thin, sculpted, or beautiful.

That is not a separate category called inclusive care.

That is individualized care.

Beyond the Before-and-After

Beauty and wellness love transformation stories.

There is nothing inherently wrong with documenting results. Before-and-after images can be useful professional tools when used ethically and with appropriate consent.

But people do not live in two photographs.

There is everything that happened between them.

There is also everything that happens after the “after.”

Research into major weight loss makes that particularly clear. Improved health, confidence, changing identity, lingering body dissatisfaction, stigma, excess skin, altered relationships, and adjustment to a different body may coexist rather than follow a neat progression (Jiretorn et al., 2024).

A person taking a GLP-1 medication does not owe us a transformation narrative.

They do not have to become our success story.

They do not have to disclose why they take their medication.

They do not have to explain whether their weight loss was intentional.

They do not have to dislike the old photograph.

They do not have to love the new one.

And they do not have to purchase a solution simply because our industry has identified another problem to solve.

Their face belongs to them.

Their body belongs to them.

Their story belongs to them.

From the Journal Page to the Treatment Room

There is a reason I keep professional journals within reach.

Not every article gives me something to immediately change in practice.

Sometimes the value is in understanding a mechanism more clearly.

Sometimes it is recognizing where the evidence remains thin.

Sometimes it is noticing that the language gaining traction in our industry is moving faster than the research underneath it.

And sometimes a paper simply gives me better questions to carry into the treatment room.

Reading beyond our immediate scope can help us understand the conversations developing around the people we already serve. It can give us more precise language when communicating across disciplines. It can expose gaps in evidence. It can challenge a claim we have heard so often online that we stopped asking where it came from.

How much of what we call “GLP-1 face” is specific to medication, and how much reflects substantial weight loss more broadly?

When does education become marketing?

When does marketing create insecurity rather than respond to it?

How do we discuss visible change without assuming distress?

How do we make room for clients whose goals do not align with traditional gendered beauty standards?

What can estheticians genuinely contribute?

What can massage therapists genuinely contribute?

Where do those roles meet medicine—and where do they remain distinct?

And how can professionals work alongside one another without competing to claim every part of the person in front of us?

Those questions are much more interesting to me than:

What can we sell for Ozempic face?

How Will Our Industries Respond?

GLP-1 medications are changing conversations around health, weight, aging, beauty, and the body.

That conversation is already entering our treatment rooms.

I do not believe beauty and wellness professionals need one collective opinion about whether someone should use these medications. Those healthcare decisions belong to individuals and the appropriately qualified professionals involved in their care.

Our part of the conversation begins somewhere else.

It begins when that person walks through our door.

When they lie on our treatment table.

When they trust us with their skin.

When they trust us with touch.

When they tell us something has changed.

We can meet that moment by immediately deciding what needs fixing.

Or we can remain curious long enough to understand what the client actually wants from us.

We can chase the loudest trend.

Or we can read closely enough to recognize where certainty ends.

We can build marketing around another insecurity.

Or we can build trust around honest expectations.

We can offer skin care without pretending it replaces facial structure.

We can offer massage without turning touch into a weight-loss promise.

We can work alongside medicine without pretending to be medicine.

And we can make room for people whose relationship with beauty, gender, weight, aging, and wellness looks nothing like our own.

Our value is not measured by how quickly we can turn a visible change into a treatment category. It is reflected in how responsibly we care for the person experiencing it.

This will not be the last emerging subject to move from research paper to marketing copy to treatment room.

Our responsibility is not to know everything first.

It is to remain curious enough to ask what the evidence actually supports before the industry decides what it can sell.

That may not create the loudest campaign.

But it may create a more trustworthy treatment room.

And in professions built around personal care and human touch, trust should remain one of the most valuable things we offer.

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Join the Conversation

As GLP-1 medications become part of more conversations in beauty and wellness, what are you seeing in your own professional space?

Where do esthetics and massage therapy contribute meaningfully—and where would stronger research, continuing education, or interdisciplinary dialogue help us serve clients more responsibly?

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About the Author

Chantilly Whittle is the founder of Chantilly Bonita LLC and a Louisiana-licensed esthetician and licensed massage therapist. Through The Wellness Grove and Notes from the Treatment Room, she writes about the places where esthetics, therapeutic touch, wellness, professional ethics, emerging research, and real-world practice intersect.

This op-ed reflects the professional opinions of Chantilly Whittle. It is intended for professional education and industry discussion and is not medical advice. Questions concerning medications, medical conditions, nutrition, or unexpected physical changes should be discussed with an appropriately qualified healthcare professional.

References

American Massage Therapy Association. (2010). Code of ethics. AMTA. AMTA Core Documents

Bommareddy, K., Fabi, S., & Muniz, M. (2026). Aesthetic considerations for preventing and managing GLP-1 receptor agonist-related facial aging. Journal of Clinical and Aesthetic Dermatology, 19(7), 16–22. JCAD

Jafar, A. B., Jacob, J., Kao, W. K., & Ho, T. (2024). Soft tissue facial changes following massive weight loss secondary to medical and surgical bariatric interventions: A systematic review. Aesthetic Surgery Journal Open Forum, 6, ojae069. https://doi.org/10.1093/asjof/ojae069

Jiretorn, L., Engström, M., Laursen, C., Ramos Salas, X., & Järvholm, K. (2024). “My goal was to become normal”—A qualitative investigation of coping with stigma, body image and self-esteem long-term after bariatric surgery. Clinical Obesity, 14(3), e12657. https://doi.org/10.1111/cob.12657

National Certification Board for Therapeutic Massage & Bodywork. (2017). Code of ethics. NCBTMB

National Certification Board for Therapeutic Massage & Bodywork. (2017). Standards of practice. NCBTMB

National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. (n.d.). Prescription medications to treat overweight & obesity. National Institutes of Health. NIDDK

Pierret, A. C. S., Benton, M., Sen Gupta, P., & Ismail, K. (2025). A qualitative study of the mental health outcomes in people being treated for obesity and type 2 diabetes with glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists. Acta Diabetologica, 62(5), 731–742. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00592-024-02392-0

Post, S. M., & Persky, S. (2024). The effect of GLP-1 receptor agonist use on negative evaluations of women with higher and lower body weight. International Journal of Obesity, 48(7), 1019–1026. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41366-024-01516-4