Weight-Loss Treatments Boom As Kenyan Attitudes To Beauty Change

She sees patients who have high blood pressure, infertility issues, diabetes, joint and back pain, while others are concerned about the overall quality of their life.

Kenyans are now “discovering that obesity is not a sign of wealth, it’s about health”, Shchukina says.

Health officials here have become increasingly concerned about the issue. In urban areas just over half of women and a quarter of men were described as either overweight or obese in a 2022 survey. In rural areas the equivalent figures were 39% and 14%.

However, some of Shchukina’s patients are also seeking to enhance their appearance, besides their health concerns.

She says that at one time being a “big size” was considered fashionable but “now… the fashion is [to be] slim, tiny… You can see how it is changing.”

Beauty expert Yvonne Kanyi says that for women the “pressure” for the “hourglass [figure] and flat stomach” was always there, although access to medical procedures was not.

Kanyi, who runs a skincare and cosmetics business and frequently speaks about beauty and entrepreneurship, says that what has changed is the celebrity culture which has now amplified the trend, “normalising medical intervention as part of maintaining a certain image”.

Besides that, more women are now feeling empowered to make decisions about their body “without apology”, she tells the BBC.

One of those is Naomi Kuria, a popular content creator who has had medical procedures to lose weight and enhance her looks – and is proud of the outcome.

The 27-year-old’s efforts to lose excess weight began in 2024.

She started with gym workouts, but five months later, she realised she was not achieving the results she wanted. She had instead added more weight and was having “serious pain” in her knees.

Alternatives were suggested, including swimming or dieting. But she wanted speedier results.

“How long will I swim to lose a kg really?” she asks. “So I explored other quicker ways to lose weight and then I found out about Ozempic.” A fellow content creator talked to her about it and she sought medical advice.

Ozempic is one of several brands, including Mounjaro and Wegovy, that are now being prescribed for long-term weight management.

It contains semaglutide, which is used in the treatment of diabetes.

The medication, administered as an injection, targets hormones that determine how quickly the stomach empties and how full a person feels, helping to regulate appetite.

Kuria says the jab helped her get closer to her ideal weight, losing 11kg (1st 10lb) in about a month and a half.

In Kenya, Ozempic is officially only available on prescription. She says she spent 80,000 Kenyan shillings ($620; £465) on the drug.

Despite experiencing the side-effect of “throwing up like crazy”, she felt good afterwards “because every part of my body was really defined”.

However, Kuria wanted to go a step further and underwent a procedure, known as an airsculpt, which is a type of liposuction designed to shape the body. This involved removing fat from her stomach and transferring it to her “skinny” legs.

She has faced criticism from her audience for undergoing the procedure, which she feels stems from people “misjudging” her reasons.

Commenters asked her why she went through with it, saying that she already had the “perfect body”.

Naomi Kuria.

Diet control and exercise have long been recommended as the best ways to manage weight.

Patients administer the weight-loss jabs themselves. Getty images

But Dr Alvin Mondoh, a Kenyan weight-management specialist, says “people still do need help” through medical intervention, as weight gain can be caused “by factors beyond your control”.

Yet he warns that there is a growing concern about the use of weight-loss jabs.

“Unfortunately, what we’ve seen in the recent past is a growing trend of people using it for vanity reasons,” he says.

There are risks, especially if someone tries to avoid the certified clinics and licensed medication and gets something cheaper in an unregulated market.

At the Nairobi Bariatric Center, which offers surgery, weight-loss drugs and counselling, packages can cost up to $7,000 (£5,000), a sum far beyond the reach of most Kenyans.

Kuria acknowledges that weight-loss procedures are “very costly” – she has spent about $6,000 on both the drugs and the airsculpt.

And she warns people to be aware of the consequences.

“You will [also] pay the cost of recovery, which is not easy. You will pay the cost of stigma, society stigma. It’s a shortcut that is never short,” she says.

However, she has no regrets.

Mondoh warns that some people’s desperation to lose weight can be exploited by scammers.

Last August, the drugs regulator, the Pharmacy and Poisons Board, issued a public safety alert over the use of weight-loss medicines.

“Semaglutide is a prescription-only medicine and its unsupervised or off-label use may result in serious health concerns,” it said.

One fitness influencer was warned to stop promoting places where his followers could buy the jabs at a cheaper price.

But given the rise in obesity levels in Kenya, the demand for quick ways to lose weight will not go away.

—BBC