Zoe Strimpel

Zoe Strimpel writes a weekly column for The Sunday Telegraph that links health trends to gender, dating and identity, often taking a contrarian view of contemporary dogmas. Her columns stand out for combining personal narrative and historical expertise with sharp scrutiny of how contemporary feminism and identity politics play out in everyday life. She approaches subjects such as weight-loss drugs, biohacking and public health culture as part of a wider story about power, autonomy and the stories people tell themselves about their bodies.

Health culture, women’s bodies and new technologies

Strimpel frequently examines women’s health through the lens of cultural expectation and self-image, using medical trends as entry points into deeper questions about gender and agency.

In her column on injectable weight-loss drugs, she treats “Ozempic bums” not as a purely clinical side effect but as a symbol of how quickly aesthetic anxieties attach themselves to health interventions, urging women to focus less on complaint and more on the trade‑offs they freely choose. Her report from California’s biohacking scene, written around efforts “to cheat death”, sets new longevity technologies against the backdrop of everyday British attitudes to work, discipline and self‑care, contrasting extreme self‑optimization with a culture she sees as increasingly lazy about basic health habits. Across these pieces she mixes first‑person experience with sceptical commentary, testing the claims of health fads against lived reality rather than accepting the marketing language around them.

The result is coverage that treats health stories as social and moral phenomena, not just lifestyle advice or consumer choice.

Identity politics, antisemitism and stressed public spaces

A recurring thread in Strimpel’s work is the way identity politics and prejudice surface in ordinary settings such as coastal towns, buses and sports arenas.

In her column about a trip to Margate, she describes a day out that becomes a case study in casual antisemitism, arguing that the town’s atmosphere is “dripping with Jew‑hate” and using specific encounters to show how hostile rhetoric has moved from fringe spaces into mainstream leisure culture. Her piece on London buses as “the clearest sign of broken Britain” reads public transport as a barometer of social decline, linking small acts of incivility and disregard to a wider erosion of shared norms and mutual respect. She also writes about controversies in elite sport, including the decision to allow an athlete with ambiguous sex characteristics to compete in women’s boxing, treating the International Olympic Committee’s inclusion policies as a stress test for the boundaries of fairness, safety and gender identity.

When she turns to figures such as Greta Thunberg, she is less concerned with climate policy than with the transformation of a young activist into what she portrays as a “politicised hooligan”, using that trajectory to explore how moral certainty and performative rage circulate through global movements. Across these subjects she treats identity politics as a powerful force reshaping public space, and her health beat folds naturally into this focus when questions of inclusion, risk and bodily integrity are at stake.

Gender, dating and the intimate sphere

Strimpel’s health coverage is shaped by a longer preoccupation with dating, intimacy and the history of gender relations. Her early writing and personal blog revolve around the dilemmas of single life, romantic expectations and sexual etiquette, from the “single person’s Catch‑22” of staying in versus going out to debates about sleeping with someone on a first date.

In professional profiles she is described as a historian of gender, intimacy and feminism, and this background informs her columns on modern relationships, sexual liberation and the changing terms on which men and women negotiate desire and commitment.

She has written both academic and popular books on dating and gender, using archival research and contemporary reportage to trace how the rise of the “single” and new feminist ideas have altered the landscape of love and sex. In her weekly column she draws on this expertise to treat health questions - especially those involving women’s bodies, reproductive choices and sexuality - as part of a longer story about how intimacy is organised and politicised.

The tone is often that of a “sincere contrarian”, a phrase used in her own public description, reflecting a willingness to challenge dominant narratives within feminism and progressive circles while remaining rooted in a gender‑focused analytical frame.

Cultural hype, media and the stories around health

Beyond print, Strimpel co‑presents a podcast that dissects the hype around heavily promoted plays, books, films and music, asking where these cultural phenomena come from and what they reveal about society. This work on hype and reception runs parallel to her health beat, where she similarly interrogates the narratives that build up around new drugs, wellness regimes and lifestyle trends.

She approaches cultural products and health interventions with the same method: identify the promise, examine who benefits, and test the rhetoric against ordinary experience and historical perspective. She also contributes to opinion and analysis outlets known for robust debate, extending her focus on gender, relationships and identity politics beyond a single masthead while keeping a consistent interest in how ideology intersects with everyday life.

Taken together, her columns, books, broadcast work and podcasting form a coherent body of commentary that treats health as inseparable from culture, intimacy and the politics of identity.