Mikayla Nogueira Denies Using Ozempic amid Her Eating Disorder Recovery - PEOPLE

TikTok star Mikayla Nogueira is addressing her recent weight loss and denying that she used Ozempic to achieve it.

On Wednesday, the 25-year-old content creator posted a video in response to a follower who accused her of taking Ozempic, an FDA-approved prescription medication for people with type 2 diabetes. It's one of the brand names for semaglutide — also known as Wegovy — which works in the brain to impact satiety, and is the latest Hollywood weight loss trend.

Quickly shutting down the critic’s message, Nogueira said comments like that have been hard to see because she’s been privately recovering from an eating disorder for the past six months.

“In recovery I happened to have lost 30 lbs. because I was struggling with binge eating disorder. And when you go through recovery and you stop binging, sometimes you’ll lose weight with that,” she explained. “But to just put in all that work for months to recover from something that has literally nearly taken your life away multiple times, to just be hit with ‘Laugh my ass off, she’s on Ozempic,’ it just sucks.”

“I just feel like it really takes away from anyone who puts in the extreme mental strain to get healthy,” she continued. “I will never personally do Ozempic because I don’t want to cheat my recovery. That’s just my personal opinion.”

Nogueira — known for her viral makeup tutorials — assured her followers that she’s not judging anyone who actually is using Ozempic or other similar weight loss injections. However, she’s not going to participate in the recent trend.

“For me, I don’t believe that would be good for my recovery. Therefore, I will never do it,” she said. “I need to develop a healthy relationship with food and exercise and my body image … and that is extremely difficult. And Ozempic just would not be the path for me.”

The influencer noted that although she’s starting to lose weight and focusing on her health, she’s not going to post about it too much or make it her “whole personality.”

“Yes, I have lost weight. I have done it completely naturally and normally and, you know, better food choices, better life choices,” she added. “I am proud of myself that I did it entirely healthy because it’s the first time in my life that I have, so that’s a huge deal for me.”

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Mikayla Nogueira.

Mikayla Nogueira Hawken/Instagram

In addition to Nogueira,  Real Housewives of New Jersey star Jackie Goldschneider previously said she would never take Ozempic because of her recovery from a 18-year eating disorder. 

Earlier this year, she criticized the misuse of the medication, writing that Ozempic was "an eating disorder in a needle."

"I can talk about Ozempic all day. It gets me so fired up," Goldschneider said at the time. "I'm horrified by it. I'm not so much horrified by people wanting to lose weight — that has always been a universal thing — but I'm very very scared of what will happen if and when people have to go off this drug."

"It's just going to be a massive number of people who gain a huge amount of weight and suddenly don't know what to do with themselves. I'm just afraid of that day. There's going to be a lot of people with eating disorders," she continued. "You start dropping massive amounts of weight. That's so addicting. That's how I spiraled into anorexia. You get addicted to this new body and to the attention that comes with it."

The reality star said Ozempic is a "scary drug" because of those who only use it just "so that they can be thin and glamorous." However, Goldschneider clarified that she thinks it's "all fine" for those who use it because they have type 2 diabetes or are morbidly obese and actually need the medication.

If you or someone you know is struggling with  an eating disorder, please go to NationalEatingDisorders.org.

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Mikayla Nogueira Denies Using Ozempic amid Her Eating Disorder Recovery - PEOPLE
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