Help protect children from gaming harms.

Take our survey

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Sky News discussion about weight loss pills this morning

304 replies

ffsarewedoingthis · 11/07/2026 07:59

They’re going through the daily papers and as per usual, three thin women are saying the same things, “there’s no long term data” (incorrect, these drugs have been in use for decades), “people who don’t need them use them” (very rare, and we don’t ban things like alcohol because kids sometimes get hold of it), “there’s a pressure to take them” (no, there’s not, if anything it’s the opposite).

AIBU to be utterly fed up of this discourse? I’m on WLI and have been for the last two years. I’ve lost ten and a half stone. It has quite literally saved my life.

Why, when they’re having these discussions, do they never discuss the fact that being obese is much much worse than any potential side effects of these drugs? Why don’t they discuss that almost every study coming out has been overwhelmingly positive, with noted positive cardiac benefits? The benefits in terms of addiction etc., are known as well.

The news trying to put people off these drugs is scary, especially when it’s three women who have obviously never experienced what it’s like to be morbidly obese and feeling like you’re suffocating in your own body.

OP posts:
Fiendishandfiery · 15/07/2026 14:15

TheAmberKoala · 15/07/2026 13:13

Anorexia will kill you much more quickly.

Also anorexia can be fixed very quickly physically. Obesity takes a long time.

ChunkyMonkey36 · 15/07/2026 14:53

I don’t think we need a “disordered eating” competition.

Neither obesity or anorexia are a moral failure, anyone who thinks either of them are, is wrong. They’re both physically unhealthy, and left untreated will both kill you.

There’s no need to make it a race.

Fiendishandfiery · 15/07/2026 15:29

ChunkyMonkey36 · 15/07/2026 14:53

I don’t think we need a “disordered eating” competition.

Neither obesity or anorexia are a moral failure, anyone who thinks either of them are, is wrong. They’re both physically unhealthy, and left untreated will both kill you.

There’s no need to make it a race.

On this I agree.

HIVpos · 16/07/2026 23:21

Fiendishandfiery · 14/07/2026 15:20

I think we all understand you wish additional checks for a drug you neither wish or use. You need to accept others do not agree with you. And neither to any of the health authorities.

however I agree with you it should be widely available on the nhs, simply they don’t have the money, it is not they don’t wish to. They can’t afford it.

of course it’s awful people have to pay.its a life saving medication with enormous health benefits, millions who would benefit cannot access as they can’t afford them. But it doesn’t change the fact we don’t have rhe money to pay for it. The nhs has many other priorities. Right now they spend 12 billion a year on treating rhe effects of being over weight. As more people use them privately. That 12 billion will drastically reduce.

30 million people in the uk are overweight or obese. 7 million on the drugs,so about 22 percent. So that in itself should save the nhs approx 3 billion a year as those people will no longer need to use the nhs for weighr related heath issues. That 3 billion can be used on other things.

i myself am a micro example. I had to see my gp monthly due to uncontrollable high blood pressure. Sometimes every two weeks. I was having regular blood tests every 3 months as they were concerned rhe bp meds would damage my kidneys. They ran regular ecgs to check my heart wasn’t damaged. I’m now off the awful meds, my blood pressure naturally healthy, I do at home readings quarterly and have annual blood tests , all of which were optimal at rhe end of last year. past that I no longer need to see my gp due to weight related health issue.

multiply me up my several million and the saving is clear. And it’s also hugely clear that today’s system works incredibly well. It balances risk and the health authorities know how to do this. Sure some people will abuse. But it’s the same for many drugs. The vast majority don’t need extra checks.

And I simply don’t understand why someone who neither takes the drugs or wishes them is so laser focused on them. My friends son take prEP, he has to have quarterly hiv tests, I can’t imagine telling him I feel he should have more checks. Foe the simple reason the drugs are not aimed at me, I’m a straight woman. I’ve no skin in the game and his opinion matters, not mine. Just like these weighr loss injections are not aimed at you as you don’t wish them. You’ve no skin in this game.

PrEP is aimed at heterosexual women too. One third of people living with HIV in the U.K. are women, worldwide it’s more than 50%.

New posts on this thread. Refresh page