To think all these weight loss jabs are a bad move?

[Pineconecollector]

I’ve seen so many people recently saying they’re on Mounjaro - someone wrote on Facebook that they were struggling to eat anything at all, hadn't eaten for over 48 hours. Just zero desire to eat anything. Surely that can’t be healthy?

I also know of someone who has lied to an only e pharmacy to get the jab, because her BMI would be considered too low to be prescribed it. She’s wanting to get down to a size 6.

I'm very fat and have looked at the jabs. I asked my GP but was told, because I don't have diabetes or am pre diabetic, I'm not eligible.

I also have a million medications for my disabilities.

Interestingly, I take dexamfetamine which is supposed to stop your appetite and all the reviews said about people losing masses of weight. I've put even more weight on! (For ADHD btw, not illegally!)

If you’re concerned about rhe black market that’s different, people on this thread are taking reputable supply where their doctors are notified. If girls want to spunk money on illegal drugs and are wealthy enough to do it, drugs have been around a long time to do that, speed, coke you name it.

Good for you and your kids. But plenty of kids are that stupid. I was a stupid kid myself once, so I know.

And only now, while taking Mounjaro, I can understand HOW you simply choose to cut out food groups, and/or refrain from eating for a few hours.

The drug allows me to make the same choices that you can.

When I have periods pains, I take painkillers to manage it, I don't book myself in for a hysterectomy to make sure I remove the underlying cause.

I had side effects for the first two weeks, I can eat just fine, I'm full after a small portion, I'm not craving unhealthy foods. When I get to my healthy weight, I'll reduce the dose again and try and find a balance, if I need to stay on them for life, I will as long as I can afford it.

If that isn't possible, I'll take the years of being lighter and healthier.

Plenty of medications aren't a magic wand, but we still use them. Not going to pretend it's easy, nothing worth it ever is.

The science around obesity is pretty clear at this point that it is one of the worst things for our long term health and for the majority of obese people it is quite likely that once they are obese they will never lose the weight or even if they do they won’t keep it off long term. The body literally fights them to regain the weight. These glp-1 drugs are the best thing we have seen in years to help tackle obesity and they are changing peoples lives and health for the better.

Yes some people abuse them and even obese people are using them to enter too drastic a calorie restriction in some cases. There can be side effects, some serious but the majority of people using them are obese people who are benefiting greatly from these medications. This class of drug has also been in use for around 20 years so it’s very unlikely that some hither to unknown deadly side effect will suddenly emerge.

Personally I think they would be better prescribed via the NHS and taken under a doctor or nurses supervision to prevent abuse and to provide support for side effects. There is also the issue of what happens when people paying privately stop as most will due to the costs as the research shows that weight regain is very likely but at £150 + cost a month for many the drug is unaffordable long term for many some kind of maintenance dose is required to prevent this and many taking these meds today will not get this and will likely regain perhaps setting up a cycle of being on and off these medications, losing and regaining over the years to come.

We live in an obesogenic environment and some people have genetics or circumstances which make them more vulnerable to obesity we also need to tackle these root causes as well as less stigma on obese people in our culture and that includes the use of these drugs.

The availability of illegal drugs for teenagers has never been greater and yet some of you are worried about a legal medication. I think in terms of risk management the illegal ones are far more widely used and available to teenagers.

Those drugs are party drugs. People don't take them to make themselves look better. This is more like steroids, which some teens are abusing to give themselves a certain 'look.' I know of one local kid who died from abusing steroids. It's a problem.

The potential for abuse is not a reason to ban the weight loss drugs - they certainly do have their place, and that is great. But it's still a concern that needs to be managed and not brushed under the carpet or ignored.

Reminds of all the people on here with mental health issues who won't see the gp because 'they'll just give me pills'.

Those pills can be life changing. No other medication is deemed as 'just pills'. For all other illnesses we seek actual medical treatment.

Sure, but that doesn’t mean we stop prescribing them to those who need them,if we took that route for all medication, society would be fucked.

Too me this is madness and the opposite of prevention. Why wait until you become ill to treat you, surely the better option would be to prevent you from becoming diabetic, developing heart disease or high blood pressure. I know it’s a financial choice but it seems silly to withhold these treatments from people who need them, obesity is a disease in itself.

On that note i knew plenty of kids when i was a teenager who used speed or cocaine as appetite suppressants to remain thin back in the 90s. Or even smoking which isnt illegal. There have been illegal or otherwise ways for many years. We cant remove a medications that treats a hormonal imbalance and works for so many people on the off chance some stupid kids use it illegally to stay slim.

@AnonymousBleep so parent your children. These issues aren't any of my business

People most certainly did do speed in the 90s/early 00s just to stay slim.

No, we definitely shouldn't ban it - it has its place, for sure. I just think it's really important to be aware of the other possible unwanted side effects, ie, the potential for abuse by othorexic teens.

Unfortunately no parent can control all the influences on their children.

Nice attitude though.

Hiya. I don't know though. Say a person lost weight the way everyone generally does - by changing what they put into their body and how they use their body - they are then a lower weight - maintaining that will be easier because they got there the right way yes?

Mind you you could say that about vaping - it's a substitute that doesn't really address the core issue.

I do take your point. But in life I have found generally that there are no quick ways to anywhere worth going. There's no such thing as a free lunch, as it were.

But what a dodgy hairdressers or random person at the gym is selling isnt the same as what you can get prescribed. Its none comparable. The fault lies with the people who think its ok to sell unregulated unlabelled substances and those willing to buy it. Not the prescribed reputable drugs.

I think there's lots of things that aren't ideal about these weight loss drugs, and I'm sad that our food and lifestyle is so bad that pretty much most middle-aged people are overweight or obese (70% of women, 80% of men aged 55-65).

Given where we are though, in this excess of awful but hyperpalatable food designed to make you overeat on purpose, these drugs are absolutely transformative for many.

They are not perfect, they risk some side-effects though the majority don't have serious ones and they can be abused (like pretty much all drugs) and they don't necessarily deliver long-term weight change, although it's hard to tell at this point.

I do think that coming on and off the drugs will work for formerly obese people, I've been on them for a period of time and am happy to come off them, but reassured that if in the future, I struggle with weight again, I will go on them again.

So many issues people have in later age are worsened by obesity, such as diabetes and arthritis/knee and hip replacements, plus they are all not helped by being less able to exercise or even just walk actively, so for me the biggest plus has been relief on my joints and ability to do exercise again.

The genie isn't going to be put back in the bottle now, whatever hand-wringing is taking place on mumsnet.

@something2say what makes you think that a person using a weight loss injection like Mounjaro isn't changing what they put into their body and how they use their body? That is literally exactly what I'm doing. It doesn't just magically melt fat off you without you changing anything.

Is that true about america's obesity stats, thats incredible if true

@AnonymousBleep but you can control and monitor what they buy and inject into themselves.

Why should I put the potential for a teen to be upset above my own physical health?

When I was using them it was a weekly injection, what are you talking about?

My partners are weekly (he is diabetic, same drug though)

I can't know this and it's only my opinion, perhaps my wish, but I wonder whether teens prone to eating disorders might, in the long-run, be less motivated and not more motivated by either using these drugs or the fact others are getting thin. Eating disorders are strongly associated with all kinds of things, need for control, psychiatric conditions, neurodiversity and autism, being a young woman (some young men, but fewer) and I wonder if eventually these behaviours will start to manifest in different ways.

It also might help with bulimia, given it does curb the tendency to binge-eat.

I may be wrong, and nothing is for certain. It may be things get worse before they get better, or there's an epidemic of young people using these things. I don't know, but I do know that it alters things like satiety, propensity to addiction, binge behaviour and so on and it may be they have beneficial impacts on these populations as much as negative ones, I wouldn't be surprised if trials are conducted on these as treatments.

I think some people don’t like to think of others having an “easy” way out. Being fat is seen as a personal moral failing which can only be redeemed through extreme deprivations. Then there are people like Howard Stern who admitted they dislike these new drugs because they worked hard to be thin and feel that if everyone can be thin now it lowers the value of thinness.

I had an acquaintance in my 20s who told me how much he disliked fatness, especially fat women and would drop friends who gained weight because it being fat meant you were lazy and stupid. This is a man who didn’t brush his teeth for about 12 years and ended up needing 20 root canals in his 30s. Was essentially an alcoholic who drank so much he’d regularly piss himself on other people couches and had to have a rubber sheet on his bed into his 30s. He smoked so much weed and fags he permanently stank of it but he wasn’t fat so therefore morally superior to anyone that was. Fatness, even though it’s pretty common is very much stigmatised in society which really helps nobody.