Relying on weight-loss drugs like Wegovy and Mounjaro to tackle obesity would be a societal and medical failure, Prof Sir Chris Whitty says.<\/p>\n
England’s chief medical officer says the drugs are \u00ab\u00a0transformational\u00a0\u00bb for people who need them, but this should be \u00ab\u00a0a very small minority\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
Letting people become obese, to then medicate them for life would be \u00ab\u00a0shocking\u00a0\u00bb and the \u00ab\u00a0wrong answer\u00a0\u00bb to one of the most pressing health issues in the UK, he says.<\/p>\n
Instead, Sir Chris says the UK should learn from other countries, including France, which are doing a much better job of eating healthily and preventing obesity.<\/p>\n
Around two thirds of adults in the UK are overweight or obese.<\/p>\n
Go back to the early 1990s and the UK and France had similar levels of obesity. But obesity levels in France have remained fairly stable for over three decades while the UK’s have soared, Sir Chris says.<\/p>\n
Speaking at the Medical Journalists’ Association annual lecture, Sir Chris said he was worried about obesity as there is an \u00ab\u00a0optimal weight\u00a0\u00bb for healthy living, with larger waistlines increasing the risk of cancers, heart disease, type 2 diabetes and infections.<\/p>\n
Weight-loss drugs mimic hormones produced by the body after a meal to suppress appetite.<\/p>\n
The NHS offers Wegovy and Mounjaro through specialist weight management services to those with the greatest need, but there is a much bigger private market with people paying hundreds of pounds a month for the medicines.<\/p>\n
It is estimated that 1.6 million people in the country have tried weight loss drugs in the past year.<\/p>\n
Sir Chris said that if a high proportion of the population ended up on the drugs it would be a \u00ab\u00a0societal failure\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
Sir Chris, who will be familiar to many from his Downing Street briefings during the Covid pandemic, said he was worried the drugs were being seen as the solution to obesity.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0Is our answer to say ‘give up on public health’ and then just rely on drugs to get us out of a hole?\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0I do not think that is a socially acceptable answer, actually I don’t think that’s a medically acceptable answer, because these drugs are not benign,\u00a0\u00bb he said.<\/p>\n
Sir Chris attacked the way children are targeted with \u00ab\u00a0pretty aggressive marketing\u00a0\u00bb of junk food which drives obesity and left the health service \u00ab\u00a0having to pick up the pieces for the rest of that child’s life\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
He said the food available on high streets in places like Wigan or Blackpool was \u00ab\u00a0completely different\u00a0\u00bb to equivalent towns in France and it was not the fault of people living there when presented with \u00ab\u00a0wall to wall\u00a0\u00bb junk food.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0That is a societal choice and is one that I think we should be looking at really, very seriously,\u00a0\u00bb Sir Chris said.<\/p>\n
And he said cutting the amount of fat and sugar in our diet did not mean eating unpleasant food.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0No one can claim the French don’t like their food,\u00a0\u00bb he said.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0It’s perfectly possible to turn this around\u00a0\u00bb and promote healthy, tasty and affordable food, he added.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0Other countries have managed it and I think we should be aiming to look at the countries which have and I would start with France, because it’s just across the Channel, and it’s very clear that they have succeeded.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Relying on weight-loss drugs like Wegovy and Mounjaro to tackle obesity would be a societal and medical failure, Prof Sir Chris Whitty says. England’s chief medical officer says the drugs are \u00ab\u00a0transformational\u00a0\u00bb for people who need them, but this should be \u00ab\u00a0a very small minority\u00a0\u00bb. Letting people become obese, to then medicate them for life […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9869","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9869\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}