AIBU to seek a consensus on who is a socially acceptable recipitent of Mounjaro?

[Periperi2025]

So it seems that much of mumsnet and society judge users of WLI extremely harshly seeing them as fat and lazy people who should just eat less, move more and use more willpower. But apparently not all of us, some of us after divulging enough medical history as 'okay'..."not you just the other fatties!!"

So, are people with diagnosed endocrine and metabolic conditions, acceptable?

What about people with undiagnosed endocrine and metabolic disorders, it's taken me over a decade to get to the point i am now, which is under endcrinology with a confirmed 'problem' and a working diagnosis but nothing more, my story is sadly far from unusual. You don't know who they are, they don't know who they are (although they may have astrong inkling), quite the conundrum!!

What about people with diagnosed Type 2 diabetes, who once were also just fat people without type 2 diabetes (mostly)?

What about people who are just fat now but statistically likely to develop type 2 diabetes in the future, like the current Type 2 diabetes patients were 10 years ago?

What about the people with severely disordered eating? As a society and a health service we deem it justifible and, hopefully preferrable to treat Anorexia Nervosa, including as inpatients at great expense (£500+ per day in the NHS), compared to treating an obese eating disordered patient with Mounjaro at a cost of approx £9 per day to the NHS for the highest dose. Presuambly in a civilised society we think that both groups of patients deserve a chance at a better quality life and improved life expextancy, and we dont think that Anorexics should just eat more and move less?!

So my AIBU is?
Are all of the above groups socially acceptable recipitents of Mounjaro?

YABU - no there are not all acceptable the gluttunous, lazy, weak willed cheats.

YANBU - of course they are all socially acceptable recipitents given that they meet the prescribing criteria for Mounjaro which has been accessed for Risk vs Benefit via peer reviewed research.

I don't mind the contempt, but the wishful thinking and and ignorance is a problem.

Her daughter is desperately ill, of course she is contemptuous of the amount of money given over to weight loss when her own DD had to almost die before anyone offered any treatment at all.

I would feel the same, you would feel the same. I wonder how contemptuous you would consider her if you were standing next to her DD's bed.

People taking more responsibility and trying harder. Learning self control. I’d love to be able to eat what I want but I can’t.

But you won’t be waiting if you need to be seen in the heart, blood pressure, sleep apnea etc depts They are prioritised .

Perhaps actually read my post before calling me ignorant! I’m far far from ignorant on this! I very clearly said IN A LOT OF CASES! I did not say ALL.

I am well aware that not every case of obesity is caused my mental health but a lot is. And far more than will admit it. You say you didn’t put the work in to loose it. Why? What was going on in your life? If your honest if your mental health was not a factor in that I would be surprised! Gaining weight in pregnancy isn’t unusual. Gaining so much weight in pregnancy that you become obese isn’t usual without other factors in play. Be it mental health, hormonal or other medical conditions.

Lucky you getting 6-12 week courses. There are parents out there desperate for help for their kids who get nothing.

As would be the case for anyone. Including those with anorexia!

I don't judge people for being on weight lose injections. Their body and their money. I don't however think it should be prescribed on NHS. If in 20 years time we discover it has damaged people's health the NHS will only be sued for prescribing it. Best keeping out of it, especially with the blame culture.

That isn't an answer, its a statement of quasi-religious faith made against all the existing evidence. Again, we simply cannot afford to indulge ourselves with this sort of non-scientific policy idea.

Everybody isn’t self inflicting heart disease , high blood pressure , sleep apnea and the other deadly conditions obesity causes. Getting beds for focused anorexic treatment is nigh on impossible. There are no spare beds and sufferers are left to get worse which is deadly.

“The vast majority of cases of obesity are not caused by trauma or mental health issues.”

In your opinion. This does not play out in real life.

Thinking about people I know:
There are links with neurodivergence (as does anorexia).
Links with childhood trauma.
A great many ballooning after taking certain drugs, including birth control pills and antidepressants. Particularly seems to affect women - maybe because drugs are tested on mainly men?
Some following cancer treatment.
Some with depression.
In real life cases it’s actually more uncommon to reach morbid obesity without an underlying cause, or from simply overeating.

The whole thing is terrifying.

My friend put loads of clothes on, to look bigger in order to get it.

Her photos were rejected x 3 until they finally agreed. Same person, same company just a few more jumpers on. Terrifying.

Then the solution is more beds are needed. Not that one group of patients is more or less deserving than another.

So maybe those with obesity should get what everybody else gets- nothing! So no double funding for all the conditions obesity causes. If Anorexics can be just give palliative care maybe those with obesity should be offfered the same.

But there is no money because obesity patients cost the NHS double that of everybody else.

You say you didn’t put the work in to loose it. Why? What was going on in your life?

Because I couldnt be arsed. It meant going without things I liked and going to the gym, and I didnt want to do that. So I accepted being fat as a side effect of my laziness.

ETA it wasnt one pregnancy, it was 6. So a stone overweight afterwards for each pregnancy equals 6 stone over weight.

And why aren't there?! Because there isnt the money thanks to it being spent disproportionately.

Yes, not giving working age obese people drugs for their high blood pressure and cholesterol should do wonders for the tax take. And place us in an ideal position to improve treatment options for conditions unrelated to obesity. Not like the NHS is full of obese and overweight staff and reliant on them to function or anything.

No. The NHS has no money because it has been chronically underfunded for decades. And because the culture at the NHS Is that of a reactive organisation not a proactive one.
We have a massively too heavy aging population and a greater life expectancy than ever before. IF the NHS was funded correctly then none of it would be an issue.
But people don’t want to pay for it.

It can prevent a whole host of conditions that will cost the NHS and other services so much more that you should be begging the nhs to supply it

I, like you, was fobbed off and ignored for decades my the medical professionals. It took getting full blown diabetes type 2 with shockingly shit test results before I finally received any support.

Diagnosed with Insulin resistant PCOS at 27 via US of ovaries and blood tests - only support was a range of smug, unhelpful medical professionals telling me I need to lose weight.

Diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes at 30, received insulin for the duration of my pregnancy but it was immediately stopped when I gave birth and I was told I didn’t need any more testing or follow up I just needed to lose weight.

Repeat visits to Drs for help with periods, joint pain, exhaustion and more over the years and they just told me I needed to go away and try harder to lose weight.

Tried every diet going, and did successfully lose weight a few times but it required cutting all carbs and starving myself, hungry to the point of crying every day, I felt like death.

Finally last year I gave up on the Drs actually helping me and bought myself a Continuous Glucose Monitor from Amazon when it started sending ‘seek medical attention’ alerts I called 111 who sent me to A&E. Testing showed my sugar levels to be 3 times the highest end of normal, further tests showed nerve damage and circulation damage in my feet and damage to my retina evidencing that I had had uncontrolled diabetes for years. During the 5 years before being diagnosed I’d been to the Drs at least a dozen times and each time they could have run a blood test but just told me to eat less and move more.

Im now prescribed Mounjaro because a combo of Insulin, Metformin and extremely low carb diet wasn’t bringing my sugar levels under control. Within 6 weeks on MJ I was able to drop the insulin and a few weeks after that I was able to start reducing the Metformin. I’ve also lost 5 stone and am a healthy BMI, I was obese in primary school so this is very new and strange for me.

We have no idea how many obese people actually have a metabolic or other physiological reason that contributes to their weight, because our health service routinely fobs of fat people and refuses to even consider that there might be something that they could do to help beyond telling them to eat less food.

Every single person who approaches the GP asking for help with their weight should have a blood test looking for common reasons why - hormone imbalances, thyroid and HbA1C. If they have a physiological problem it should be treated just like we would expect for any other medical condition where treatments are available. That doesn’t necessary mean Mounjaro, I could probably have been significantly helped back in my 20’s with Metformin, but by the time anyone was willing to treat me I was too badly damaged.

My child was anorexic as a teenager.
Mental health support in this country is diabolical, we all know that. Underfunded and, especially within CAMHS, a dreadful misuse of resources. It struck me that the lack of joined up thinking about eating disorders and links to autism are a huge part of the problem because the psychotherapy approach taken (which I believe has all but been taken away now) didn’t tend to work, mainly because it’s an approach that doesn’t work for autistics (same as offering CBT when it’s know to be largely ineffective for autistic people). The mental health system is outdated and stubborn, it does a disservice to so many relying on it, and I think it makes it easy to cut funds because the treatments they offer are so ineffective.

It’s not fair to think that some people, with a similar psychological background (albeit with different results) should be blamed for lack of services in another area.

Getting a drug on the NHS means other people paying for your lifestyle drug. If you want it and don’t fit the guidelines but it or eat less. It’s boring now

Do you think anorexics should just eat more and get bored with the thousands it costs for them to be put into residential care and/or have ongoing therapy when needed? Or is it just fat people you dislike?

6-12 week courses after a lengthy wait, just like services for children.

My child was seen by CAMHS crisis team within an hour (they were shit and made the problem far worse). As an adult she was told that they couldn’t stop her killing herself if that’s what she wanted then was told she could see someone from the team in 6-8 months.

Waiting times for obese adults are as long as for anyone else, there isn’t a special pass unless you’re in an acute emergency, but I’m not sure it would be ethical to turn a person away having a heart attack because they’re fat…