Why are so many people anti WLI

[Mumble12]

I just don’t understand it!

Mounjaro has literally changed my life overnight. It’s dealt with things that I didn’t even know were fixable. Why are so many people (presumably those that haven’t tried them and really have no intention to) so dead against it.

Do people misunderstand how it works? So many people perceive it as cheating…but I can’t fathom the logic - even if it was cheating…so what?! Why do they want people to be miserable and struggle with obesity?

While I retain a healthy level of scepticism about the pharmaceutical industry, we should also remember that the improvements in health and mortality in the last century have largely come about through the introduction of new medicines. Antibiotics, cancer drugs, blood pressure medication, statins and even the humble aspirin have contributed to longer lifespans. Ironically, it is obesity that is now causing a reduction in mortality in some areas.

So yes - we should absolutely be doing everything possible to prevent obesity, but we should also be treating it where we can. Just like any other chronic disease.

I don’t think I’m talking about “societal change” but rather government policies that will help. If you don’t think taxation on cigarettes that pushes the price a pack of twenty to around £15 a pack is being used alongside treatments to try and reduce cancer, COPD etc, then more fool you. If you want to tackle obesity at a population level then you have to take a system view and consider what can be done in various different areas to achieve that.

I am absolutely the opposite to what you suggest in terms of the nasty judgement value and perceptions of greed and laziness - the whole point of my argument is that individuals are set up to fail by a food environment in which individual willpower is futile. And rather than trying to tackle that as well, the government is only focusing on WLI.

The government isn’t even focussing on WLI though. They are happy with the 12 year roll out plan, that hasn’t even really started in most areas due to logistical and funding issues. That’s not going to have any noticeable impact on obesity rates any time soon.

The massive uptake of WLI is an almost entirely private process, self funded by those who are able to. Nothing to do with the govt.

“Speaking as the government launches a 10-year-plan for the NHS, Wes Streeting said access to weight loss injections should be “based on need and not the ability to pay”.”

Can't see how we could take a system view whilst not talking about societal change. Not with something as widespread as obesity.

While I don't think your argument is persuasive, it's even less so if we're merely talking about tinkering round the edges. You mention taxation. We could do things like more taxes on sugar and processed food, but that is not going to stop people still eating more of they need than the cheaper stuff. Or even of alternative, more expensive stuff.

Really, for this idea to be fully developed you'd have to be talking about things like redesigning society and the economy so people have more time to cook, access to the necessary facilities, and even for it to become a more valued and recompensed role in society rather than being yet more unpaid labour expected from women. Things that amount to big social change.

I don't think it would work, certainly not to the extent that WLIs do anyway, but it's a more persuasive idea than getting people to overeat on different foods to the ones they overeat on now.

Just to be clear - I’m not saying that individuals shouldn’t be given medical help with what has become a chronic medical condition for them. I’m just saying that obesity ALSO needs to be considered as a public health issue, and the tools and techniques that have been used in other public health issues should also be used to help reduce obesity levels and help reduce the number of individuals for whom it becomes a medical issue.

I really didn’t expect that do be a controversial view, but here we are. Will step away now.

It's the fact that you referred to yourself as anti WLI, for me at least. That is controversial, and you should have 100% expected pushback for your decision to describe yourself as such on this board.

There is also the blatant double standard in that you're not acknowledging that being anti WLI now means more of us having to turn to Big Pharma anyway. It's sus.

Yeah that’s not the controversial bit. Of course everyone agrees that the govt should address obesity systematically at a societal level. It was the part where you said you were specifically anti WLI because of the fact that you think that it should only be addressed at a societal level.

If you think there have been no policies to encourage healthy eating, then more fool you. The latest one was only announced a month or so ago.

My point was more that people tend not to describe themselves as anti chemotherapy, or anti statins. They seem to tolerate treatment for other ‘lifestyle’ diseases, even if they also think that a long-term solution to the prevalence of those diseases lies in policy. But people are happy to declare themselves anti WLI. Seems strange.

It’s because fat people are one of the last groups of people around that it’s still socially acceptable to discriminate against. Because it’s seen as being their own fault. Obesity still isn’t widely understood as a disease. Obese people are perceived as lazy, and having an injection to “cure” their “laziness” just perpetuates the stereotype that they’re lazy. People who don’t understand obesity think why should they be allowed a drug that allows them to be even more “lazy” about their weight loss and allows them to “cheat” when it’s their own fault they’re obese in the first place. Also, I think it’s jealousy both from slim people and slightly overweight people. The first because they don’t want everyone to become slim like them - it means more competition (for jobs, relationships, just looking good) as we all know obese people don’t get the best jobs, partners, and aren’t “admired” for lack of a better word. And for the latter group, they feel hard done by because they’ve worked their asses off all their lives to lose weight the “proper” way and aren’t quite overweight enough to be eligible for the injections so feel envious when they see slightly fatter people easily sailing down to a bmi of 20 when they’re still working their asses off in the gym and feeling hungry all the time and can’t get below a bmi of 24!

You were literally discussing “the reason I’m anti WLI”.

You really couldn’t predict that declaring yourself to be against a medical treatment that is improving quality of life for millions and saving lives all over the world would be controversial?!

More fool you.

It’s resentment and jealousy- being slim is achievable for so many more people now - some people seem quite threatened by this.

One great side effect is that my bunions no longer hurt and I don't get swollen painful feet when I've been standing or walking around all day, and I no longer have stiff joints. For some of us, the weight loss is almost not the best thing about WLI :)

People will always judge. Let them jog on!

People will always judge. Let them jog on!

I might jog on myself and past them now I'm slim. 😂

You’re very right about this:

talking about things like redesigning society and the economy so people have more time to cook

when I lost weight “naturally” in 2020, it was say 1 of the lockdown and I decided enough was enough and I now had nothing but free time to cook healthy meals from scratch and exercise til my heart was content. Between March 2020 and February 2021, I lost 7 stone.

i managed to maintain it as far as September 2021 and then they weight slowly crept back on. By the end of 2022 I was as big as I’d been before and once life went back to normal, it felt impossible to find the time to start again.