Super Bowl viewers blasted the telehealth company behind an advertisement that highlighted its hypocrisy over weight loss medication.
While many shared their favorite and least favorite ads that ran during Sunday’s Super Bowl LIX, the Hims & Hers Health company came under fire for the 60-second spot called “Sick of the System.”
Calling out the $160 billion weight loss industry and naming obesity as “America’s deadliest epidemic,” the ad slammed the “broken” healthcare system before going on to tout its own “affordable, doctor-trusted” products.
The ad states that “something’s broken and it’s not our bodies” to a backdrop of Childish Gambino’s “This is America.”
The company said that “there are medications that work, but they’re priced for profits, not patients,” showing images meant to represent weight loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. “The system wasn’t built to help us, it was built to keep us sick and stuck.”
Democratic Senator Richard Durbin and Republican Senator Roger Marshall had already called out the company over the “misleading” ad.
“We recognize the important roles that pharmaceutical compounding and telehealth play in the health care delivery system, helping to ensure access to FDA-approved products and filling a need for more customized treatments,” they wrote in a letter to Dr. Sarah Brenner, acting commissioner of the FDA. “However, we believe there should be no disparity in pharmaceutical advertising requirements between regulated entities.”
“We plan to soon introduce bipartisan legislation to close this gap, so that patients are not deceived by advertisements that glaringly omit critical safety and side effect information,” the letter reads. “But we believe FDA may already have the authority to take enforcement action against marketing that may mislead patients about this company’s products.”
The company defended itself, however, telling Adweek, “It’s clear that the ad has struck a chord, and people are paying attention.”
“We’ve called out the system, and now the system is asking that our ad get taken down,” a spokesperson told the outlet.
Viewers of the ad were not inclined to accept the company’s claims, with one X user calling it “The most anti-America Super Bowl ad” that was “pretending to critique the broken food system while pushing sketchy, unapproved Ozempic knockoffs.”
This Hims & Hers commercial is hypocritical as hell they’re just selling what they said was evil LMAOOO
— Jeff The Spurs Fan (@JefftheSpursfan) February 10, 2025
Got so pumped halfway through the hims&hers commercial talking about how the system is broken and designed to keep us obese and sick. Yes yes and yes.
And then they tried to sell a pill. No.
Pills. Are not. The answer. 😤
— Sarah (@Sarah__Kidwell) February 10, 2025
That Hims & Hers commercial that basically said “our system has failed us and caused America’s obesity problem. Here’s a drug you can inject into yourself that will make you skinny” is some of the most dystopian shit
— Foxie 🦊 (@FoxieKT) February 10, 2025
So the “hims & hers” Super Bowl commercial trashes medications… then sells medications in their commercial. Make it make sense.
— Ashley Cox (@UnsilntPatriot) February 10, 2025
so instead of promoting healthy eating, this Hims & Hers commercial just jumps straight to meds and injections for weight loss. Just take a shortcut
— Tanya Tay Posobiec ☦️ (@realTanyaTay) February 10, 2025
Hims and hers commercial: the system of chemicals is made to keep us sick, so buy our pills to be healthy. 🤦♂️🤦♂️
— Dream Big USA (@TheDreamBigUSA) February 10, 2025
