To wonder if 'Big Food' are up in arms about weight loss injections?

[Iamsunshineinabag]

I've just finished reading Ultra Processed People (great book!) and the realisation that so much processed food is irresistible because they literally design it to be has got me thinking - are the companies that make our favourite salty snacks, fizzy drinks, ready meals, processed foods etc concerned about how many people are using the weight loss injections?

I'm not on the injections myself but a couple of family members are and they are amazed by how the food noise is quietened and they don't crave all this stuff anymore. They are just giving their bodies what they objectively need rather than what they crave. It's a game changer really!

But what are the big food companies thinking? Anyone have any inside info?!

I am wondering why it's estimated it'll take so long to roll this all out on the NHS/at an affordable cost for most. Presumably making it easily accessible all in one go would be disastrous for takeaways/fast food/lots of junk food companies.

They don't have to worry because whilst injections stop people craving food, they will stop taking them. Their behaviour won't have changed though and they will go back to eating crap.
How many people do you know who have lost weight only to put it back on.

Two years ago I lost 2 stones, mainly through smaller portions. But I also cut out eating crap. Over Christmas I've put a few pounds on but will drop that when my diet returns to normal.

I'm sure I've read in the US, who have a larger % of the population on these compared to the UK, fast food companies are reporting sales declines after years of growth.

Because gps struggle with current demand never mind adding in multiple millions of people trying to get appts for wli. They’ve been very clear and I think it’s obvious. You can’t really think the nhsdecided to do a slow roll out when the injections will save them so much more money to help takeaways out.

i mean serously??

It takes time and money because people can't be on the injections for life. They will need support to maintain a healthy weight and diet when coming off the injections and that takes time and money. Equally I believe the cardiovascular effects of obesity don't disappear with the weight, the person still needs to make appropriate lifestyle changes, including exercise, to counter those.

Good grief.

people can be on mounjaro for life.

whats going on, did people just wake up and decide to make stuff up 😂

And who is going to pay for it? The idea of giving the injections out to obese people is to save the NHS money

I’m stunned at how uninformed you are.

please do some critical thinking. Spend some time understating how much obesity costs the nhs, joint replacements, diabetes, heart attack, stroke, to name a few, and then correlate that against the cost of the drugs. And then apply some thought to how many billions you’d save v a fraction of that cost to keep folks on the drugs.

jist think about it.

I'm perfectly well informed thank you. I assume you are either on the injections or want the injections given the aggressive nature of your posts

What’s the fact I’m on the injections got to do with the discussion. You clearly are not well informed based on what you asked.

They won't need to be on the SAME dose, so for example I'm on 10mg at the moment and I'm approaching a healthy bmi.

Once I'm at the right weight for me I can do two injections a month instead of the current 5. So the cost would be about £40 (you can't actually buy 2 injections so this is all theory)

My current medications cost the nhs that for me not to have thyroid/diabetes/menopause issues (that would actually prevent me working and paying tax at the rate I do as I'd be unwell and have to go part time again!

If we look at the big societal picture and imagine a healthier society paying more tax, doing more exercise, not being such a drain on the nhs and freeing it up for other people then we can see how much better things can be.

Added to which the pill for GLP is on the way and it's going to revolutionise how we do it at the moment and become a lot cheaper.

I finished taking WLI 14 weeks ago, after losing 3.5 stone. I’ve absolutely stuck to the excellent habits I implemented while taking WLI, I put on less than 1lb over Christmas and am already back to normal as I returned to my good eating habits the day after Boxing Day.

I was thinking about this the other day (Mounjaro user) and the amount of junk food I have bought has cut down massively since starting, I used to buy a lot of “100 calorie treat” typed snacks, which I now just don’t want or need. So they are definitely getting less money for me. I think we will see more “health foods”, there are already a lot of foods claiming to be high in protein which when you look into it properly are not actually that high. Perhaps Big Food and Big Pharma will work together and we’ll all spend 6 months on WLI from Big Pharma, then come off and then spend 6 months buying crap from Big Food then go back on WLI 🤣

It explains your unbiased aggression.

I also exercised pre MJ, while taking MJ, and post MJ.

My behaviour has entirely changed. I am nothing like I was before, and I've been off it for 6 months now.

What makes your 2 stone weight loss and being able to keep it off any different to mounjaro weight loss while people are building new habits whilst on it?

Um no, when you’re wrong just put your hands up and own it. Rather than lashing out.

I expect restaurants and manufacturers to focus more on small portion / “health” etc items, to appeal to this new market.

I've been wondering this too.

Will we see a contraction in the fast food everywhere culture.

I'm sure it will be replaced with something else but it will be interesting to see the effect.

I think we've also normalised bigger body shapes and portion sizes. Even for those not on weight loss injections this may have an impact. I really hope it helps children and they don't end up in the overweight cycle in the first place (or at least less so).

The concern is that it further widens the class divide in terms of those who can afford and those who can't.

And then think about how much the side effects are going to cost to treat at scale - organ damage, cancer, all the as yet unknown long term risks since it's not been around long. Very few medications are actually safe to take for an entire lifetime.

I agree that at some point Big Food are going to say "hang on, we don't like the idea of everyone using these injections and denting our profits" and they'll put pressure on governments like ours not to roll them out to general public. They'll demand that availability is kept to a strict criteria of diabetics and the most clinically obese etc. Plus Big Pharma aren't stupid – they're not going to roll out an injection or pill that will cure the world's obesity either, because how would they make their money after that? They'll just keep making them effective enough to guarantee repeat customers for decades to come, like WeightWatchers and Slimming World.

Genuine concern for people's health barely factors at all.

There is a shift towards it being taken as long term medication like statins. A pill form is being developed and prices will plummet as patents expire.

Again, no. These drugs have been in use for 20 odd years under different guises and in testing for 15 before that.

…you have no idea if there will be any long term side effects. These drugs have been in use for about 10 years, so I think side-effects may well have made themselves know.

What I do know, is that there are many proven side effects of Obesity, so let’s treat what we know, and not pander to your fantasy side-effects.

Much longer actually. All in nearly 4 decades of data.