What do we REALLY think about the weight loss jabs?

But at society level it would make a massive difference - if there were no "ready to eat" foods bar what occurs naturally (bananas), the population would be thinner. It would be almost impossible to eat on the go cheaply without prep/ forethought. It would hugely reduce snacking. There are not that many passionate/ talented cooks and people who would think "oh I want a cookie- I'll make some" whereas if you can just go to the shop 2 mins away you can get your hands on a whole packet for pennies.

You're the exception that proves the rule, just like the "just practice willpower" people are the outliers re personal responsibility- there are people who despite low levels of GLPs maintain a healthy weight by just being ultra self disciplined, but that's unusual.

It's kind of academic anyway as my proposal would never ever happen in a million years. It would be legislatively impossible and totally kill what's left of the high street- instead of coffee shops and vape shops it would literally just be a line of vape shops :-)

Your first three sentences seem to contradict each other - we know the drugs work by hormonally regulating appetite, and then the only thing to prevent obesity is a ban on certain foodstuffs being sold.

The big thing that is helping prevent obesity is the WLI giving people what they need to control their eating themselves. I don't need any foodstuff banning any more. I can have chocolate and biscuits in the house and not be tempted.

The fact that 30% of UK adults are obese is not evidence that 30% of UK adults have a metabolic disorder of satiety, no. Of course some will, and some will have caused a leptin insensitivity due to fat gain.

But if you do believe that obesity is a metabolic disorder beyond people’s individual control, surely you’d want children to be medicated to prevent it? If most of society applauds medical science and wants medication, why do you have a problem with that?

Yes, no-one is talking about taking your drugs away from you, stop panicking. I’m hoping to have a rational discussion about the wider effects of these drugs and what they mean for all of us, whether we use them or not. You seem unable to do that without dismissing my differing opinion as ‘religious’ or some other thing.

The bit that's totalitarian is your sentence 'stop offering more food than anyone could ever possibly need'. The level of state overreach that would be required to prevent people from having access to loads more calories than they need goes well beyond simply better regulation of food industry practices and processed stuff. It's not happening.

Humans in cold climates often do/did quite a lot of shivering when they were poor, yes. Better heating means those of us who live in cold climates need less energy to keep warm than we did during periods when our societies fed us all three meals a day and didn't have high obesity rates. This is not controversial.

In terms of appointments, obesity for a lot of people isn't likely to be immediately life threatening, but does obviously elevate the risk for a lot of conditions that will kill you earlier. So there are lots of people taking WLIs whilst meeting prescription criteria who don't currently use HCP provider capacity to have regular appointments, but would do if people who want more checks for WLIs get their way. Because extra checks don't automatically and immediately create more HCPs, those HCPs would have to come from somewhere and in some cases that would be the NHS.

It's fine to feel uncomfortable with the possibility of remote appointments and self-monitoring causing problems, but anyone who's going as far as suggesting changes does need to tell us why WLIs need this greater level of scrutiny and why it's better for what are sometimes zero sum resources to be allocated there. That part is invariably missing.

@AllJoyAndNoFun

“The only thing that is going to prevent obesity is something completely draconian like a ban on the sale of any foodstuffs that are not raw ingredients.”

I disagree, for me anyway. Most of my food is from whole ingredients but I can eat huge amounts because it’s so damn tasty (I can cook and am inventive too). Still calories which if you don’t have that I’m full signal can be overeaten as much as crap good can be.

Yes consistently rude. Here's the clue, and of course it hasn't just been to them.
This poster has been posting nonsense, as if drunk, stoned, or on pills.
People with a robust point of debate don't need to use playground retorts. It doesn't exactly encourage anyone to take any notice.

I mean we know why. That's how the drugs work - they give people more of the hormone that regulates appetite and helps them live in an exceptionally obesogenic environment. The only thing that is going to prevent obesity is something completely draconian like a ban on the sale of any foodstuffs that are not raw ingredients. For the vast majority of people, "personal responsibility" is just not going to be sufficient in an environment where there are so many counter factors plus their monkey brains telling us to "better eat that now - could be a hard winter".

And the WHO make no financial gain from this at all do they??!!!

If you're not too busy then, would you like to explain how autoimmune diseases occur? I'm sure it would be terribly useful for the medical profession to learn your insights and why it isn't appropriate to use medications that have been proven to have significant positive effects.

Please include your arguments against biologics, corticosteroids, diabetes medication and pain relief as well as a specific case for the incidence in babies and small children and how they can be blamed for their immune system dysfunction, too.

But as with any medication, it needs to be accompanied by the work on why the disease occurred. We know why heart disease happens and how to prevent/reduce it and while it’s of course good to treat obese people, it’s even better to prevent them becoming obese, isn’t it? I think a civilised and responsible society should encourage citizens to look after themselves, not just sell them drugs to fix things.

No, not religious. It seems to me that you’ll grab any random defence mechanism rather than look beyond your own positive experience. Any medical advancement has bigger consequences - good and bad - than for the individual.

Stop with the nonsense that people who dare to disagree with you, have “something wrong with them”, you gave me that line as well!

You think accusing someone that opposes your view, is drunk, stoned or on pills?

What “pills”’are you thinking they’re on?

Does the second paragraph mean you think medication is the thing that's causing the need for appointments, rather than the existence of the conditions themselves? I suppose technically you're right in that there are lots of things people would just die of if we didn't medicate, but that seems a rather drastic response to appointment shortages!

I think it’s a mixture, of course we shouldn’t allow people to die rather than medicate but that’s largely not the issue with WLIs so comparing to live saving - rather than health improving - medication seems out of place to me. If obesity is already life threatening a patient would be on more than WLIs while they lose weight right?

The factors driving obesity are relatively universal yes, and things like processed food are a huge one. It’s not totalitarian to say ‘hey, maybe we don’t need all these UPFs?’

And yes, bodies use more calories being cold but do you think humans in cold countries are just shivering? Of course they’re not! So the calorie differential between, say Finland and UK based on temperature alone is negligible.

Depends, I was eating 4000/5000 calories a day and always flipping hungry and not gaining weight - medically I was ill

No-one should be starving hungry if they eat the right quantities of protein and food that offers satiety.

Does the second paragraph mean you think medication is the thing that's causing the need for appointments, rather than the existence of the conditions themselves? I suppose technically you're right in that there are lots of things people would just die of if we didn't medicate, but that seems a rather drastic response to appointment shortages!

You state that if we make everything available more people will get lost in it. Interestingly, the only society that looks like it might have reduced obesity rates (excepting famine and similar) is the US over the last couple of years. As WLIs became more available.

I'll reply to your other post to me here too- keeping warm in the cold burns more calories than needed if the person is in warmer temperatures. Presumably we all know that even small calorie surplus leads to weight gain over time. And there still aren't any societies that have managed to avoid rising obesity rates once they got resource rich whilst not having lots of the population on appetite suppressants.

In terms of not offering more food than people need, this isn't going to happen outside a totalitarian society. And possibly not even then. No government is going to get away with that level of rationing and control over what people produce themselves.

Weight loss jabs don’t work for everyone. Some diabetics are fat people.

Unfortunately being cold doesn’t burn as many extra calories as you might think! And the solution is precisely that - stop offering more food than anyone could ever possibly need! Foods are allowed to be filled with all manner of shit, why do we find that acceptable if it means people can inject themselves with the antidote?

They’re not working particularly well for my mum either.

She’s lost 7lbs in 6 months, on 5mg for most of it.

Her symptoms are horrendous so she doesn’t want to move up, but she’s not had any meaningful loss on the dose that’s knocking her sick.

Personally, I’d have come off them by now if I was her.

You don't need a covid conspiracy theory. The food industry makes ultra processed food (more lucrative), people get obese, sick, then then stay on medication for life (yet more profit). One thing feeds the other.
I don't think it was deliberately planned, but works neatly.

Can I make a plea on behalf of those of us who - for whatever reason - are excluded from experiencing the wonders of WLI to those of you on it. Please please when you are in our company having food together don’t make a big thing telling me you’re full. Stuffed. Had enough. As you leave food on your plate. Please just be full and leave the food without needing to announce it. I really am happy for you, but I’m still in the head fuck of food noise that you may also have had before but are now well rid, and it makes me feel like shit.

Very true, it’s reactive instead of proactive and doesn’t deal with the huge challenge of poor diet and lifestyle choices.
’influencers’ glamourising huge snack hauls or all you can eat buffets., just one example of how the country is encouraging crap eating habits

Same, and it’s been a long time since I used hormonal contraception but my memory was that in person was required every X months and then they’d give you that many months supply. Maybe that makes no difference, but witness the outcry when a serious incident happens following a telephone GP appointment etc.

Of course there’s a limited number of appointments, that just seems like the wrong way round to me though. If we overwhelm the system with unnecessary drugs then of course there won’t be enough appointments, just like there isn’t enough help for alcohol use disorders since we all but deregulated the sale of alcohol, for example. If we make everything readily available a chunk of people will get lost in it, no shit. The same is true of food and now WLIs.

There might well be further benefits of peptides, there’s lots of testing going on. I also hate the idea that these things are being tested on animals. Test it on humans by all means, but these are lifestyle drugs being tried out. That alone would deter me.

That must be so frustrating @Barkleyspaubles

Are you on the max dose?

I’m the only person in the known universe (!) for whom it doesn’t work. I’ve been on Mounjauro for 2 years. Starving hungry most of the time. Will power and the excitement saw me lose two stone in the first four months or so… since then I’ve stayed within 2 or 3lbs of the same weight. I suppose it’s stopped the yo yo ing but I just wish the Yo had stuck further down the scale!!