I’ve had struggles with weight in the past.
And I’m sure plenty of Good Life Letter readers have, too.
So I completely get the attraction of a drug that seems to ‘cure’ obesity and make you slim again.
But I also despair…
Because it feels like we had a chance, as a society, to address the fundamental problems that make us prone to weight gain…
The abundance of cheap convenience food… alluringly packaged products loaded with sugar, salt and trans fats… increasingly sedentary lifestyles… a lack of food education…. old cooking skills not being passed down….
Instead though, we’ve turned to big pharmaceutical companies.
The same corporate machine that makes us fat is offering drugs to make us thin.
Sign-ups for weight loss drug Wegovy jumped by FIVE TIMES in the space of 3 months this year.
A BBC article says: “The surge reflects scorching demand for the medicine which, alongside sister diabetes drug Ozempic, has been hailed as revolutionary and helped to transform Novo Nordisk into one of Europe’s most valuable companies.”
Good to see another poor, struggling pharma get filthy mega-rich AGAIN.
It makes me despair, because it has allowed us to side-step the important measures that could really help public health.
As per usual, these new weight loss drugs come with side-effects.
This is the full list from Wegovy’s own website: Nausea, diarrhoea vomiting, constipation, stomach pain, headache, tiredness, upset stomach, dizziness, feeling bloated, belching, low blood sugar in people with type 2 diabetes, flatulence, stomach flu, heartburn, runny nose or sore throat.
And possibly the worst side effect is that it can take away your desire for, and enjoyment of, food.
To quote the food critic Jay Rayner, who wrote about this topic in his column last year: “This drug will make you lose weight, arse over thigh, but it will also make you hate the thing you once most loved.”
I totally agree.
Severing our deep connection with food is not the answer!
We should be embracing the healing restorative power of real food and instead rejecting fake foods and UPFs.
What’s more, allowing corporations to reap the financial benefits of health problems caused by other corporations is – in my view – ludicrous and corrupt.
If you have any thoughts on this, do write in and let me know!
