I visit family in other states and I get comments like “I can’t believe you are so thin.” For context I am a healthy weight and I eat what I consider a reasonable diet. I sit and smile while I watch them drink soda and eat pure sugar and salt. I don’t care about your life choices but don’t act surprised by someone that’s a normal weight.
The new semiglutide drugs have only been on the market since about 2019, and in the best cases members in the study only lost up to 30% bodyweight (and real world data that’s been trickling in is even less, topping out at around 15-20%) so for someone who needs to halve their weight it’s only getting them part of the way there.
Additionally they work by mucking with one’s metabolism so the patient wouldn’t feel hungry. That only helps people who are overweight due to overeating. Tons of people have undiagnosed health issues that muck with their weight, and we all know the systemic challenges related to healthcare access and access to diagnosis and treatment, especially with how doctors tend to treat to patients who are minorities, female, overweight or any combination of the above.
Also most patients are not able to keep the weight off after stopping semiglutide treatment, even in studies where participants were simultaneously given personalized diet and exercise guidance and switched to a placebo treatment, as soon as treatment was stopped the weight returned.
These new semiglutide treatments are incredible and are allowing people to lose weight more successfully and more effectively than they might have ever been able to, but they aren’t the entire solution to the obesity epidemic.
If you want to learn more, I highly recommend this episode of the Maintenance Phase podcast for more details (transcript and sources also available!)