Weight loss injections for children

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NC and hard hat in situ.

I've listened to counting the threads I've seen on weight loss injections and what a miracle they are for those who are overweight or obese. There have been lots of posters questioning if the NHS will roll out the drugs to everyone who needs them and it hit me thinking about obese children. Will this possible roll out include kids? Should kids be on weight loss injections? Will we see whole families on these drugs? Will healthy eating and lifestyle and psychological support be provided for these families? Where would the funding come from? So many questions about these so called miracle drugs.

Posters often say that these drugs will ease the burden on the NHS in the long term but at the moment they are only available to those who meet the strict criteria or lie to obtain them. Weight loss clinics have long waiting lists and it's next to impossible to get these drugs on the NHS unless you are diabetic because these drugs were developed for diabetes.

Should the focus be on preventing long term problems in overweight and obese kids to avoid the burden on the NHS when they become obese adults with type 2 diabetes, heart disease, cancers etc?

Are people too focused on these miracle drugs as an easier cure for weight problems?

It's a complex issue and I don't have the answers. There are too many factors at play for a simple solution as far as I can see. The whole obeseogenic environment argument, fractured families, long working hours, both parents working, kids not playing out and being on computer games for hours instead of being outside, snack culture, fast food culture, ultra processed foods, poverty etc. I agree these don't help but we do have agency to make good choices for ourselves and our kids.
It's complex but ultimately are weight loss injections going to solve the obesity crisis for adults and kids alike?

When I was doing my plasters, I did a lit review on biopsychosocial interventions for weight management in children. While it is tempting to think that education about healthy eating, lifestyle and such is the ultimate solution, research shows that these interventions are ineffective. The problem is much larger and solutions need to include a complete restructuring of society which is unrealistic, unfortunately. So yes, injections are an "easy fix" to avoid complex problems down the line. Maybe it is not right but it is the only feasible solution at present.

I wonder whether having parents on WLI will have a knock on effect on what the children are given to eat. Less invective to buy high calorie foods maybe.

I probably, largely, dont have an issue with children being on medication that is required. Plenty of children are on ADHD meds for example because we know the alternative is a life and childhood of limitations and negativity

But we do have to ask why the UK compared to other countries in Europe is one of the worst for this, we dont have more trauma or 'emotional eating', or problems with insulin regulation, or resistance to good foods than other countries

Therefore its not us and our bodies, its our society.

I think its probably more helpful also to see WLI as a wider positive medication for protection for lots of other illness, I know they're not prescribed for that, but the research about heart health, parkinsons, dementia protection etc etc, support for gamblers and drinkers, its very positive.

Something in me really balks at this. Or at least without a fundamental and honest appraisal into why children are getting so fat 😥.

It would seem very much like a sticking plaster.

Are people too focused on these miracle drugs as an easier cure for weight problems

is easier the right word when other interventions just don’t work on a societal level?

I think there have been some successful studies in children. I agree it doesn’t sound ideal.

To make the necessary environmental changes needed to make a difference to the population you would need to treat UPFs like we currently do cigarettes. There would be massive economic implications affecting people ability to pay for food and affecting things like pension funds. People wouldn’t accept the restrictions and inconvenience of having to cook everything fresh again.

I do agree that it is madness having unhealthy food and drugs to counteract them but I don’t know if there is a workable healthy way out of the situation we have got ourselves into.

This. It seems so so wrong.

Perhaps as another pp wrote, the injections for the parents will force changes within the family unit. Or the injections will be seen as an easy future solution, and people will eat more shit in the basis it will be easy to lose the weight down the line.

Yep I don’t think people would be too happy with the actual solution which would be effectively going back to a 1950s level of food availability. Getting rid of 95% of fast food outlets, 90% of processed crap in the supermarkets.

People eat cheap tasty calorific food designed to be addictive because it’s there and a lot of people lack the executive function required to avoid it.

It’s like the gambling industry depends on a small group of problematic users. If we actually did eat processed food at a moderate level then the industry would not exist.

A longitudinal study of obese children given weight loss injections would be interesting.
I don't really buy the obeseogenic environment as the reason for obesity at a societal level. We have choices. If it's societal why isn't everybody obese?

You assume that we all have equal capacity to make the rational choice.

We’re not all blank slates.

We are not all obese because we have genetic variation. But why are more people obese today than were in the 1970s? We haven’t changed as a species but the food environment has.

Poverty is associated with higher rates of obesity. Roughly 30% of children in the UK live in poverty. There is a desperate need to tackle that.

@mynameiscalypso I find it interesting that obesity is associated with poverty as it used to be that being underweight was associated with poverty. An outlier admittedly but the most overweight kid at DS's school has parents in the top earner bracket. His mum was bemoaning not having the free childcare hours because they earnt too much a few years back. Both parents are obese as is the younger brother. After school snacks are a share bag of Haribo each or similar. Poverty often associated with a lower level of education but this isn't the case here. There will always be outliers I know.

There are a group of obese children who have what is known as hypothalamic obesity. This can sometimes be as a result of cancer treatment or injury, or can be a congenital difference. For these children no amount of healthy eating limits their obesity.
We have such a child and were watching these drugs make their way through the testing processes for years. The last time we spoke to our consultant a year or two ago, he said he was beginning to prescribe from age 12, but slowly and carefully and only where strictly necessary.

Well if you include overweight and obesity and morbid obesity I believe its a majority of the population

If you dont believe its environment, what is it about the UK body that is different to the Spanish or Italian or French body? (as examples off the top of my head)

Why are we similar to the US and Australian body?

I have a relative who has Prader-Willi Syndrome and one terrible (and in incurable) side effect is hyperphagia - the feeling of never being full / always feeling hungry/ compulsion to eat.

Hyperphagia in PWS is due to the part of the brain that controls the hypothalamus not working correctly due to a missing part of chromosome 15 it's a lot more complicated than that but that's it in layman's terms and weightloss drugs have not yet been used in the UK for kids (or adults) with PWS - despite hyperphagia meaning people with PWS are much more likely to be morbidly obese. In the US this is now being researched but again hasn't been rolled out as a general treatment (and the US are a good decade ahead with treatment and research for PWS)

I cannot see MJ and the like being rolled out to the general child population when it's not being rolled out to children with medical conditions which cause morbid obesity.

You need to treat UPFs like cigarettes and return to a society where far fewer journeys are made by car, tbh.

You're looking at it too specifically. Everyone has a vice which is where it's societal. It's just not necessarily always food, but if it's not food it's something else.

Interesting, I just quickly researched it and although nothing is approved yet it looks like studies so far have found that some types of weightloss injections could work for them while others like ozempic won't.

Looks like Wegovy is already licensed for 12-17 year olds in America and here is an article arguing the case for it.

My concern for children is nutrition. They need less calories but more nutrients. Reducing food intake will mean for many a small amount of upf is eaten each day which is insufficient nutrients for growing children.

It can be a combination of environment, culture and genetics.

Besides, many Australians and Americans are descended from Brits. Similar genes and culture.

Its environment and culture predominantly. We know this because as Italian and Spanish and French food culture changes slightly to become more American, more 'snacks on the go'. less routine, longer working hours, more UPFs, they too have increasing overweight and obesity. No where near ours but increasing.

We don't all have the same choices. Consider living in Archway, London with Nags Head food market 5 min walk away, Hampstead heath 15 min walk away, multiple gyms and reliable public transport to take you everywhere you need to go (school, work etc.). Now consider moving from there to, say, Avonmouth, Bristol. There are no food markets, the nearest supermarket is 15 min drive away. There is a bus every 30 minutes which is often late or cancelled. There are no green spaces around you so you can't go for a walk unless you have a car. The nearest gym is 20 minutes drive away or you can cycle but only in good weather because the footpath running along the motorway gets flooded in the rain. Do you honestly think the people living in those two locations have the exact same choices?

In the age of supermarket deliveries then yes, we have the same choices of what food to buy and eat. I don't drive and don't live in London. The buses are regular and reliable but I don't use them often and not for food shopping because I get deliveries. I don't use a gym or cycle anywhere. I think the majority of people do drive. When I was a child we only had the village shop which was a mile away. My mum did a big shop once a month at the supermarket a few miles away. Top ups from the local shop and butcher which was a 20 minute walk. She didn't drive when we first lived there.

I think it's human nature that we make excuses for our choices instead of taking responsibility for them.