At the pharmacy, they’ve been out of Ozempic (a brand name for the injectable drug semaglutide) for three weeks, and they have no idea when it will come back in.
If the situation does not change then, I will soon find out whether people who stop injecting just gain weight again.
I’m increasingly getting the sense that there’s a pulse of slim people who will secretly be happy if that’s what happens.
Let me take as my first text a column written by Matthew Parris last fall.
Parris, whom I’ve known for nearly 40 years, has never been anything but wiry and lean. He ran marathons under three hours when he was an MP. I can’t imagine he ever had to think seriously about his weight.
His column noted that while smoking-related deaths and illnesses had plummeted in recent years, problems associated with obesity had skyrocketed.
David Aaronovitch says when he got his hands on Ozempic, he lost weight without dieting, which people didn’t like
Parris’s thesis, summarized in the headline: Fat Shaming Is the Only Way to Overcome the Obesity Crisis, was that since putting stigmas on smoking had worked to reduce the practice, applying stigmas to…
Well, what exactly? Eating? Should snacking be banned in offices and relegated to benches outside?
Chewing chips on station platforms prohibited? So, in the absence of any detail, I had to assume his solution was to stigmatize that he was obese. People, he wrote, should not feel comfortable being overweight. We must feel that we can say that.’
A sad duty, but someone has to do it. Very often the guy in the van who almost runs you over at a zebra crossing.
You have to wonder where Parris has been all these years. Fat shaming never went away. And it clearly does no good.
Partly because while it is mostly (although not absolutely) true that “overeating” is the cause of obesity, which leads some people to overeat is a much more complex question, and one that our understanding has evolved over the course of the time has grown. recent times.
IN THE FUTURE WE MAY WONDER WHY WE MAKE IT AVAILABLE TO EVERYONE
Heredity clearly plays a role, as does endocrinology. I mention Parris because he is such an eloquent and intelligent interpreter of an opinion that is widely shared (not least by the overweight people themselves).
When I wrote about my experience with Ozempic back in February, the private emails I received were mostly from people desperate to try it.
The public comments under the piece were completely the opposite: why should the NHS subsidize saving fat people when all they need to do is change their lifestyle? Why don’t YOU do what I do? What I did? Virtue signaling was frantic.
Before Ozempic came on the market, apart from bariatric surgery, the only cure for chronic obesity was diet and exercise.
The weight-loss industry is worth billions and essentially operates on the same principle as gyms: in general, they are not sustainable. If only a few worked permanently, everyone else would soon go out of business.
In 2005, I followed the Pritikin Diet after visiting their famous longevity and weight loss spa in Florida. I bought into their whole schtick. In 2006 I ran a marathon under 4½ hours.
Before Ozempic came on the market, apart from bariatric surgery, the only cure for chronic obesity was diet and exercise
But the diet was so heavy and the exercise so time-consuming that I couldn’t keep it up.
In the absence of any other possible treatment, I accepted the idea that this was my fault; that I lacked the “willpower” to keep my calorie consumption low for long periods of time.
So I yoyoed. It was like my body wanted me to reach a certain weight and eventually I would oblige.
Then I got my hands on Ozempic and lost weight without dieting. And a lot of people really didn’t like it.
Their objections fell into one (or more) of the following camps…
It undermines personal responsibility
This argument assumes that a person using the drug does not need to watch how much they eat or exercise more to lose weight, but that once off the drug they fall back into “bad” habits of greed and laziness. But will they? It’s much easier to exercise once you’ve lost some weight. Ever thought of it, folks?
It “medicalizes” a problem that needs to be addressed naturally
Remember the arguments that once raged about giving apparently healthy people statins to lower “bad” cholesterol and thus prevent future disease?
Given the effectiveness of statins, their cheapness, and the absence of any evidence of significant side effects, it always seemed to me that the objectors’ argument stemmed from a misguided “naturalism” that assumed that the totally unaltered human being is, in some sense, better than the one that has been supplemented.
I am unsympathetic to this way of thinking. Even chimpanzees use tools.
It means huge profits for the manufacturers
And it does. Like Viagra, another “repurposed” drug that proved effective in addressing a problem that also seemed largely intractable (there is no obviously painful diet or exercise regimen available for that part of the body, aside from some highly esoteric, supposedly eastern practices). If companies are going to make a lot of money, wouldn’t we rather they did it by inventing products that do some good?
The weight-loss industry is worth billions and essentially operates on the same principle as gyms: If you look at them in general, they’re not sustainable, says David
It diverts attention from the real problem, which is the food industry
In April, Sarah Boseley, a former health correspondent for The Guardian, wrote, ‘Skinny jabs may seem like an easy fix… But it’s not a miracle shot.
Those weekly injections must be combined with a low-calorie diet and exercise – which people already find difficult. Dieting is no fun and the body resists starvation, so weight loss slows down as time goes by.
But likewise, once people stop injecting these new drugs, the pounds can come back on. People may have to stay on it for years, if not for life. We don’t yet know what the consequences will be.’
Some of this is just wrong. In fact, the injections do not have to be combined with low-calorie diets at all. Or with exercise.
And yes, weight loss may slow down, but semaglutide weight loss numbers are pretty dramatic. As for the effects of years of using the drug, we know quite a bit, because some diabetics have been on it for half a decade. So far, so good.
Your face goes limp
We’ve been hit with a proliferation of stories about how Ozempic-using people with prolapses where their fat rolls used to be are now resorting to plastic surgery. That is very satisfying for the weight addicts.
Ignore them. If you’re losing a fair amount of weight, and you’re of an age where the skin has lost its youthful elasticity, you’ll be slacking whatever you use to slim down. Think of the late Nigel Lawson who went unrecognizable decades before semaglutide was developed.
Has anyone ever written a piece about facial drooping after WeightWatchers? No. And yet they will sag.
It is a physical treatment of a psychological problem
That doesn’t explain to me why so many happy and well-adjusted people become overweight.
Likewise, the health reasons for not being overweight are substantial; the pressure to lose weight isn’t entirely due to the negative attitudes of the likes of Matthew Parris or pressure from the media or the fashion industry. A higher risk of death or disability is exactly why men like me may want to lose a lot of weight.
From all the evidence and from experience, I see semaglutide as a good thing. That could change, but I suspect in a decade we might wonder why we’ve put off making it available to everyone for so long and not just those who, like me, can afford to pay for it.
Not that providing it is the problem right now. Because they still don’t have down at the pharmacy.
- A longer version of this article can be found at Substack Notes from the Underground by David Aaronovitch