What do we REALLY think about the weight loss jabs?

[Newbabynewhouse]

I've put this on AIBU rather than weight loss jab because I want a neutral audience rather than people who are all using the jab.
What are peoples thoughts on the jab? I'd love to hear from someone educated in the medical field about whether these are actually safe for people without diabetes.
I'm obese and I have lost a stone so far by dieting although it's taking me a long time! I know if I keep trying hard I can lose what I need to. Lots of people I know have started dropping weight from using the jabs and I am tempted however, can't shake a feeling that there's something not quite right.
What I mean by this is... these jabs have been around for years for diabetic people, so why have they only just been 'released' to people despite obesity effecting the NHS for years?
I know a woman who fainted in work the other day with gallbladder issues, she's on the jab.
Also, I'm going to sound a little conspiracy theorist now, but, isn't it odd these jabs became popular straight after people starting refusing to have more covid jabs..?.. I'd love to hear from people with a bit of background info or medical professionals to tell me whether I'm overthinking or if I'm onto something?

@Allisnotlost1 yes, I’m not assuming that all overweight people have a weight related illness. Some of them will, hence the large numbers of people eligible for these medications.

Yes, as I said before, WLI are part of the solution not the whole solution. Roll on cultural change! Indeed it makes no sense to sit and watch children becoming obese and becoming obese adults. I don’t think that many people have or do suggest that childhood obesity should be ignored because of WLI.

I think if people use them or start to use them they should he prepared they may need to stay on them to keep the weight off. I’m not saying that will be the same for everyone but all the people I know who used them lost weight, stopped using them and gained again

@pinkishtongue yes, as I said, accessing fake or illegal medication is clearly risky and inappropriate. Unsurprising they’re not getting correct medical advice from criminals!

Of course, I just think there’s risk in the misconception that these drugs are the solution to ‘food noise’ and we collectively take our eye off the ball. Plenty of people will be using these drugs, not moderating their diet or exercising, and raising their children to witness their habits. You see it everywhere!

I think people need to make their own decisions.

If obese people can't do it with intake/output control, and are willing to take any risks, then good for them.

I think it would be best done through face to face medical support though. Online pharmacies can be dubious, or manipulated.

But I’m good with that, genuinely I’m absolutely fine with anyone thinking it’s a life style choice, I also genuinely don’t care if anyone takes issue with it, as long as my gp and my family are good with it, which they are, that’s all that matters to me. The label is irrelevant

if im honest i think anyone who takes issue with my choice to maintain on the meds is doing so from a place of resentment and envy, i do not beleive its anything else, as my choices are mine. But more so because if someone knows the health history you’d not label it simply lifestyle unless deeply jealous.

but for me, the opinions I respect are from my doctor and family, im very open I’m on the meds, in real life I’ve really only met curiousity and several people also going on them as they saw my success, with a flutter of envy from a few more distant female acquaintances when they realised I would not regain. For some reason that seems to put people’s backs up,the thought I can take the meds and enjoy my life without the weight struggle and not regain. I suspect as that’s the hardest bit.

but yes for me, what people label it is irrelevant, it doesn’t impact me or my choices but does make me cock an eyebrow and assume motivation

We didn't actually have our eye on the ball in the first place, let's be honest. These are things that were issues well before WLI availability.

You’re obviously not fine with it because you can’t help but come out defensive and insulting, and admit that you think people who don’t share your precise views are envious of you. At best, that’s an unusual response. I don’t know you, I don’t know anything about you, other than that you use WLIs, how on earth can I be envious of you?

That’s true, it’s not a great landscape, but there have been some efforts to improve that.

This is another really strange comment. Why would anybody envy you for being overweight or for needing to take drugs to get it under control? Both being overweight and injecting drugs sound horrible, not things of which anybody would be envious! 🧐🤷‍♀️🤔

But I am ok with it, if I wasn’t I’d say, why would I lie?

and the fact you’re insulted isn’t on me. And why would you be envious. Multiple reasons, you could be over weight and unable to access, you could be a bit chubby and unhappy with your body. You could be someone who works hard to maintain a healthy weight and jealous as you think those maintaining on it have it easier. There is a multitude of reasons you’d ignore rhe medical reasons and rush to label it a lifestyle choice. A multitude of reasons yoire all over this thread for a medication you don’t take.

of course it could be you’re genuinely worried about rhe population, or it could be a reason you simply don’t wish to admit. But there is no doubt there is an anger and resentment coming across in many of your posts. Not all, some are balanced, but it’s clear you’re on here for a reason other than you are simply am altruistic person worried about the health of fat people as you’re proclaiming.

Yeah, some. Whatever we were doing demonstrably wasn't working though. We were starting from a long way behind the line! I think it's wise to be clear about the hole we were in on the eve of widespread WLI availability as well as the one we're still in now.

Again, what a lot of projection.

Im not insulted, you are being insulting. It would be as bizarre for me to be insulted as it is for you to imagine I envy you. We are strangers to one another.

Truly happy people don’t feel the need to try bring others down. If it helps you to imagine others as chubby and sad about it while you’re using drugs for life to control your own thoughts, that’s fine with me.

Absolutely, but WLIs now play into that, it’s not a separate issue, and they seem to be perpetuating the idea that people can’t help themselves but become obese. By the time people are obese it’s very difficult to do anything other than drastic intervention. The time for action is at that 30% overweight part of the population.

That's a large leap in the first sentence. How do WLIs play into the dynamic that already existed before them, or perpetuate that idea? I agree with the second half of the post but the first is missing a lot of working out.

@Allisnotlost1i think people who use WLI and don’t teach their children about healthy eating won’t have done it anyway even if WLI were not available to them. It’s not a related issue imo. I really don’t see people behaving that way everywhere. I’d be intrigued to know where you see it everywhere?

Of course new things coming into an existing system play into it. Does a baby have nothing to do with the nature of its pre-existing familial landscape?

Any treatment for obesity, or for being overweight if via private prescription, plays into a landscape where access to healthy food and green space and other health creating activities are hugely varied according to economics, and can enable parents to continue modelling unhealthy habits to children. It can mask the responsibility of governments to ensure food security and quality. It can contribute to a culture that values thinness and acceptability over health, and the structural elements of health, even for people who are not obese and don’t use WLIs.

I see it a lot where I live - among people I know through work or the gym or hobbies, and to a lesser extent where I work. Of course not everyone, but enough to make me aware of it.

ETA yes plenty of parents would not have modelled good habits regardless, but some are also so enamoured by their weight loss they’re blind to what caused the gain. I unfortunately know lots of women who have more money than sense and buy into the peri/cortisol/supplement lifestyle stuff, but don’t take much notice of what their kids are doing!

@Allisnotlost1 you see them using WLI? Or do they tell you? And then you also see them with their children enough to know that they are modelling unhealthy habits? I wonder in what capacity you see this at work - are you a social worker?

I think having a generation of adults who are no longer obese at the rates we currently see will benefit children and help reduce childhood obesity, personally. That’s based on my own experience of moving from morbidly obese to a healthy weight, which of course means I am more active than I was before. Same with everyone else on the long running threads for WLI support. Mothers who are healthier, fitter and eating better, and also no longer weighted down mentally by being obese. I think it’s odd to think that those parents would decide that it doesn’t matter if their children get obese when they’ve just spent time and money on stopping being obese themselves.

I think we probably need clarity on what you think 'play into' means. Are we talking about something that you believe changes an existing landscape? That's important to be clear on when these are problems that not only existed before WLIs but were increasing, and when the things you're discussing would be changes for the bad.

You mention in your second paragraph WLIs enable parents to continue modelling habits to children, but you evidently accept lots of parents were already doing this already. If 'enabling' were needed, it has existed for a while. So do you think it's the case that WLI access increases this kind of behaviour, or that levels will stay similar/drop thanks to WLIs but there will still be some other kind of change?

You also said initially that they seemed to be perpetuating the idea, which is written like you believe this is a truth already happening, and then it's changed to 'can' ie hypotheticals. I can't tell from that whether you believe WLIs are now perpetuating the idea or that you think they could at some point.

I’m not no! Do you not talk to your friends or acquaintances, or see them with their kids? I’m not deciding what they think, I’m describing a situation based on what I’ve seen and heard. Newly slim mums, and some dads, kids still overweight and inactive and eating junk food. I don’t think these are parents who ‘don’t care’ about their kids, but they haven’t actually changed the habits that made themselves overweight (and it was mainly overweight, not obese). Meanwhile I have family who are diabetic and use GLPs, had to try several and dosing etc to manage horrible side effects, who are and have been for a long time very careful about their diet. So no, I don’t think all users are the same.

Perhaps you’re right, but the drivers of obesity haven’t changed so it seems fairly unlikely to me that childhood obesity will just naturally reverse. Is there data on increased meaningful activity after WLIs?

@Allisnotlost1 I didn’t suggest that childhood obesity would naturally reverse. I said that fitter and healthier adults might help reduce childhood obesity.

I think the kind of people you seem to know and describe have issues with parenting that existed prior to the availability of WLI and they would have issues whether they took them or not. I guess you think that the majority of people who take WLI also have very uninterested and unthinking parenting styles like the people that you know.

By “play into” I mean exactly that - they enter an existing landscape and become part of it. I don’t mean WLIs created any of these things, neither do I mean they have no impact. I don’t know how else to explain that 🤷‍♀️

Of course unhealthy habits existed before WLIs. My point is that WLIs make it possible to lose a significant amount of weight without necessarily changing those habits. There is already evidence of people losing substantial weight on GLP-1s without an improvement in diet quality, and that brings fewer health improvements than WLI+diet improvement+exercise.

I think there’s a legitimate question about whether putting more emphasis on pharmaceutical treatment makes it easier to ignore the conditions producing the problem in the first place, as I have said already in the thread.

And yes, “can” is deliberate - meaning both ‘yes think this is happening’ and ‘this might happen in the future’. You’ve got a pp saying people who can’t access WLIs or are unhappy about their body must envy them. That notion doesn’t come from nowhere, Western (white) women are competitive about weight, it’s not news.

You don’t need to guess what I think, because I keep telling you - I think not everyone is the same, and that people’s life experiences and responses to things vary. So the idea being portrayed here that all users are obese/unwell and have changed their lives as a result, is wrong. And it would be wrong for me to portray all users as similar to those in my loose social circle.

If formerly obese adults become genuinely fitter and more active, then yes that is likely to have some impact on their children. If they teach their children good eating habits (which they may have done all along) that would make even more of a difference. I guess we’ll see in time.

My apologies for my poor comprehension.

Yes we’ll see. As I said before I am inordinately happy to be able to access GLP1s for the impact they have had on my health and fitness and the impact on my family life.