Obesity is down 2%, but everyone is lying about why

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What I find curious about this new wave of waifs is how coy they are about talking about the drug. I’ve lost count of the number of newly emaciated editors and stylists extolling their current diet and brand new fitness regimens. I spent several minutes the other day discussing one editor’s weight-loss journey — he had shed some 20kg since the winter, simply, he insisted, by taking his diet in hand. He told others that he had been using weight-loss injections, which suggests he felt a stigma associated with the drug. And he might be right. Another editor railed against Ozempic “cheaters” who simply shrug off the extra kilos without using the traditional tools of denial, willpower and hunger pangs. 

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Ozempic and Wegovy are now major tools in the fight against obesity. Their maker, the Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk, now has a market capitalisation of around $560bn: Ozempic alone made up 27 per cent of its net sales in its 2023 financial year. (No wonder other manufacturers, such as Eli Lilly, are keen to grab some market share.) The costs, currently the subject of a debate raised this week by Senator Bernie Sanders, who is chair of the US Senate health committee, have become a source of ire: Americans pay around $969 a month for their Ozempic, whereas Germans pay only $59. And demand is insatiable. Forty per cent of American adults are currently categorised as obese, a number that has dropped, according to a report by the Centre for Disease Control, by 2 per cent in the past three years. It’s too soon to say whether this is due to the increasing use of the weight-loss drug, but it does show a reversal in a trend for the first time since records began.

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