AIBU to think it's time for the NHS to do itself a favour and make WL injections readily available.

But you don't want to get fat. You've said so, and you are able to stop it happening. So it's hardly likely you are going to do this, is it?

Surprisingly, most morbidly obese people don't want to be that way. They don't get there because they can control their eating like you clearly can. Yes, out of desperation, some very overweight people have resorted to tipping the scales that bit further to qualify for surgery.

But honestly, can you think of a single person with a normal BMI and a standard attitude to food that has stuffed themselves to the extent they become obese enough to qualify for medical intervention?

You have a standard attitude to food. You have to be a bit more careful now you have reached menopause (don't we all). Are you really going to sacrifice your health to that extent just to be able to not have to be a little bit careful? I don't think so.

Some on this thread have given very good medical reasons why this drug might be needed. Not wanted.

Earlier in the thread I gave a very good reason why handing it out like a sweetie to everyone who 'wants' it is far from a good idea.

@Mang0M1nt

Weight loss won’t treat your trauma.

I know, I wasn't trying to suggest it would. Just dipping into the discussion because of the 'just eat less and move more' comment.

I don't want the drugs, I have no interest.

Weight loss won’t treat your trauma. I want my son’s trauma treated. I don’t want sticking plaster drugs and I don’t want MH services drained even further to fund these jabs. I also don’t want him diverting his attention from food to something else.

Also re ND, eating disorders are common in the ND. A starved brain can develop Anorexia easily. ND often comes with a fixed mindset which can enable EDs to get a worse grip. I actually think ND people are not necessarily a safe group for these drugs .

Yes that’s true. But it certainly will decentivize people who are overweight, but not obese yet, from trying to lose weight as they may just think instead it will be easier for them to put on more weight until they get into the obese category and qualify for weight loss injections. It’s kind of similar to saying that support to help stop smoking will only be given to people who smoke 40 a day but not 20.

@Funnywonder just seen your reply to my comment. No of course it's not a failing. It is sad but not a failing, though I never used the word fail in my post in the first place so not sure where that's stemming from. My point is that we need to be dealing with the actual causes rather than the result if you see what I mean. So much more mental health focus rather than handing out temporary fixes, otherwise people will be left with the exact same things they started with. Nobody gets to morbidly obese by accident, nobody gets there by chance. There is an underlying reason for each person and that is the bit that needs the support.

To get to the stage of needing it though, you’d likely be living quite a difficult life and miserable. Living with obesity is not a lot of fun

@HeySummerWhereAreYou

I know someone will say I sound smug - and it's a bit annoying when people say this, but really, why are people not just cutting down their food and getting more exercise?

Not smug, but lacking knowledge for sure.

I know the absolute ins and outs of how to lose weight. I know what to eat, when to eat it, the best exercise etc etc

What I do not know is how to stop myself from eating. How to put all that in place and make it stick.

You yourself say you have yo-yod for years, so you also can not make it stick. For whatever reason.

My reasons are neglect, trauma and neurodivergence. They make it difficult, very difficult, like running a marathon every weekend.

It's never going to be as simple as eat less move more.

@AutumnLeaves5
I don’t know how that loop is broken, unless the government really to want to change things and bring in much stricter regulation of these industries.

The problem is these companies spend £££££ lobbying the government in oder to influence policy to stop them changing things and bringing in stricter regulations. Until the government isn't influenced by these big companies they aren't going to do what is best for everyone, these companies have to much power.

No, non-overweight people absolutely should not have access to this.

My point earlier in the thread was that research suggests much wider uses for this drug than weight loss. It was found to reduce CRP levels by 40%. CRP being a measure of inflammation. My life is ruled by inflammation due to inflammatory disease, not something that can be cured by eating less and I'm not overweight anyway. Once it can be produced cheaply it could have potential in all kinds of diseases.

Well that will cause perverse behaviour then. I may as well enjoy eating loads and get a bit fat for a while so that I can get access to a drug that suppresses my appetite and makes my life a lot easier and happier 🤷🏽‍♀️

The world is burning. The fact is we need to be consuming less manufactured packaged crap, less meat, closer sourced food….continuing to consume the same crap and manufacturing more crap to help people eat less of it in an easier way is literally bonkers.

What gets me is we have to eat on a budget, can only afford meat once a week, don’t consume red meat,have to eat lentils at least once a week, don’t buy crap or ever eat out or have take aways( can’t afford it or the cost to ourselves) but others can eat a huge amount of expensive food and then apparantly have precious NHS resources diverted from other areas that need it on top to ensure they don’t eat as much in an easier way.

I have two ND kids with disordered eating. One has been seriously ill from Anorexia and the other binges. The Anorexic has beaten it with precious little resources from a broken MH system and her brother is in the process of fighting it. It’s agonising as he wrestle with trauma on top but he is pushing through it. Both have had to do it on an extremely tight budget( I can’t afford chicken breast salad etc).

It is possible and I don’t get why others expect to drain NHS resources further to do it with zero effort whilst continuing to damage the planet and I suspect in many cases not actually improving their cholesterol and risk of cancer at all.

I have been fat (and slim) on and off all my life, I am 5 ft 3-ish, and have been between 9 stone and 15 and a half stone over my lifetime (sort of half way between now - and a size 14-16.) Mid-late 50s. Could do with losing a bit of weight

I have to say though, that hell will freeze over before I get injections to lose weight. And I would never get surgery! I know someone will say I sound smug - and it's a bit annoying when people say this, but really, why are people not just cutting down their food and getting more exercise?

No-one should be getting to the stage where they need weight loss injections and surgery to lose weight! I also think NONE of this should be available on the NHS. And if someone goes to Turkey or somewhere else abroad, and has weight loss surgery, and it goes wrong, they should not be allowed to have it fixed on the NHS. From say, January 2025 this should be stopped! If people go and get things done abroad and it goes wrong, they go with the knowledge that the NHS will NOT pick up the bill. This is the risk they take!

I saw some items on the news a few weeks ago about this very thing. One woman (mid 30s) had gone to Turkey to have a gastric by-pass, (she was 19 stone,) and it had gone terribly wrong. She was ill for about a year and a half, and had to have around 7 different surgeries to put it right. Cost to the NHS = £150,000. All because she didn't want to pay the £10,000 to have the surgery over here privately. (In Turkey it was £5000.) So because she was too tight to pay the extra, she destroyed her health, and cost the NHS £150,000.

She lost 7 stone after the surgery within about 5 months.

3 years later it has all gone back on ... What was the point?!

So I disagree with weight loss surgery and injections being funded by the NHS, because almost everyone I know who has had it and lost 6 stone or more (or has lost 6 stone or more without medical intervention,) has put it ALL BACK ON. (And in some cases, they have also gained an extra stone or two.)

Also, as has been said by a few posters, some people expect excess skin removal surgery to be funded by the NHS too. And they still put all or most of the weight back on even then. Because skin stretches of course!

So how is the NHS funding peoples weight loss drugs and surgeries helping the NHS? The vast majority of people will regain the weight! Some people have a bad relationship with food, and will simply put all the weight back on. And I know what I'm talking about, because I have struggled all my life with my weight, and lost it and gained it back, and lost it and gained it back et al....

Again though, some attitudes on this thread just demonstrate that in some people’s eyes, whatever fat people do is wrong.

Well it makes it easier for me, with disordered eating!… I can’t explain it any better than I did above. I no longer get a “hit” from eating food. I did before, I got a “rush” from eating something like chocolate or crisps etc and the rush would make it harder to resist eating more of it.

now I don’t get the hit I don’t crave the sugary or fatty stuff. I don’t eat to make myself feel better but just for fuel and because I know I need to eat still a certain amount of calories. Because I no longer get a hit I can more easily choose the apple over the doughnut or the grilled chicken salad over a creamy pasta. Yes I could have chosen those before but when you have your hormones and the other physiological forces at work it’s extremely difficult to overcome. Same as an alcohol abuser (I was one of those too, now long term sober) still makes the choice on some level to buy and drink alcohol when they could choose not to. The addiction/compulsion takes over. Does that make any sense? I think if someone comes at it from the perspective of a “normal” eater who does sometimes eat unhealthy things or occasionally overeats it’s not the same as for a compulsive eater. Same as someone who can have a glass of wine and then leave it doesn’t come at it from the perspective of an alcoholic.

If every GP surgery was like that then there may be less problems overall. You are INCREDIBLY lucky. You do realise that the vast majority of GP surgeries are not like that?

At mine it’s a 5-6 week wait to be seen by a nurse practitioner who then tells you there is nothing wrong with you.

You have done incredibly well. That is absolutely brilliant!

I would say that, as human beings, we are all different. Let's pretend there are no physiological factors at play in the development of obesity. Say it's ALL about psychology - about motivation and will power. Why is it a failing if someone doesn't have the requisite motivation and will power to lose weight? We aren't clones and we all have our unique genetic makeup and life history. Am I a failure if I can't overcome anxiety/depression without medication?

It offends me and the carbon footprint too of the plastics, manufacturing process, being flown from China….. no no no

Better MH services, access to fitness and food education please.

Your logic maybe, but not mine. It's called ACCIDENT and Emergency for a reason.

I'm aware, been through surgery last year. Vitality has now changed their restrictions to a 3 year wait which will unfortunately push more people to go abroad.

I don't want to offend anyone. But it offends me that there are so many hungry people in the world, and people with no access to clean water, sanitation, vaccines. People can't get treatment for serious lifelong illnesses, cancer or childbirth complications. Children die of entirety preventable disease every day.

And here we sit, unable to control our compulsive eating, greed and bad choices, expecting precious healthcare resources to be spent this way when we have so much already.

So it’s a choice then? People are perfectly capable of cooking real food but they choose not to. I thought it was an addiction?

If it’s a choice they should be doing it themselves and not just have the NHS drained to do it for them whilst the MH services that could treat the origins of it have nothing.

Just no for so many reasons.

The majority of people are not overweight due to food trauma or neurodiversity.

How does it make it easier to eat healthier food if somebody eats shit to the extent it is killing them. Those eating high processed diet, high fat, high sugar diet aren’t going to suddenly switch to a diet high in veg and low in sugar and fat. Nibbling on 2 chicken selects as opposed to 10 isn’t going to reduce your cholesterol.Your % of bad fat will be the same. Your risk of cancer isn’t going to change if you eat the same processed food but just less.

I’m at the high end of a healthy weight and my cholesterol is just in undesirable. I’ve had to cut out full fat milk in my coffee and butter on my toast. Not being obese doesn’t make it any less desirable.

The cancer inducing food companies must be rubbing their hands in glee. They’ll be pedalling the same cancer inducing crap in smaller packaging but charging the same. They’ll actually make money from these jabs.

No, non-overweight people absolutely should not have access to this.

These injections are not for people who have a little trouble keeping away from the biscuits. They are for people who are unable to do what you find a bit difficult. If you are able to keep your weight in check with a bit of effort, you don't have a problem you can't manage without drugs.

If you were given a drug that is designed for people who are obese, not just carrying a bit extra, what do you think would happen?

From what I understand, the injections work as appetite suppressants. That's fine when your appetite is constant. But suppressing a 'normal' appetite, which is what you actually have, even if you don't think you do, will result in dangerous under-eating.

This attitude to it is what frightens me about the prevalence of this drug on the internet. It's not a 'cheat', it's a medical intervention for a serious health problem. It needs to be prescription only, shouldn't be obtainable by filling in an online questionnaire alone.

This is where getting it on the NHS would be good. It's a drug. Like all drugs, its availability should be based on 'need', not 'want'. The NHS is less likely than a private company to hand over a drug you want, but do not need.

I am very concerned to keep this out of the hands of people who want it but don't need it. The potential effects of such a drug on people who just don't want to have a menopause belly could be catastrophic.

I don't have personal experience but the posters on the MN injectables board often say that they find it easier to eat healthier: they're not just less hungry, they're less vulnerable to the specific call of terrible food: cronuts, dirty fries, Frappuccino's with whipped cream or whatever.

More able to say "I'm finally hungry today, I need food, I'll eat actual food."