Does the pill make you fat ??? I have come to realise that this common misconception is more widely entrenched than I realised after having teenage daughters. When the contraceptive pill is suggested to manage disordered bleeding, period pain or acne , young women and teenagers are often resistant believing they will “get fat”. Now in days gone by, more like 25 + years ago, the contraceptive pill had much higher doses of estrogen with less specificity for target organs. So yes, in short, these would commonly cause weight gain, breast enlargement and bloating In the last 20 years the pill has advanced substantially. Good options these days even include pills which have a diuretic to assist with weight loss as well as pills which only target female organs rather than the whole body. Educating our young women to dispel these myths is something I now do regularly as the contraceptive pill can be a fantastic solution with little to no side effects in most cases.