The incoming US administration faces a debate about tackling the obesity epidemic. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. advocates for lifestyle changes, while Elon Musk champions new weight-loss drugs. This highlights the ongoing question: can lifestyle changes alone solve the obesity problem, or do we need pharmaceutical interventions?
For Robert F. Kennedy Jr, the activist whom US President-elect Donald Trump will nominate to serve as the secretary of health and human services, the solution to obesity in America – now at 40 per cent of adults – is straightforward: “The first line of response should be lifestyle,” he told Jim Cramer in recent CNBC interview.
Elon Musk, the technology billionaire who advises the president-elect, sees things differently: “Nothing would do more to improve the health, lifespan and quality of life for Americans than making GLP inhibitors super low cost to the public,” he wrote on the social platform X, referring to the new class of drugs that cause weight loss, including Ozempic. “Nothing else is even close.” (GLP is Glucagon-like peptide, a hormone produced in the gut and released in response to food.) Statements by Robert F. Kennedy Jr and Elon Musk tap into a dispute over whether lifestyle changes or pharmaceuticals are better for treating obesity.And there, with the contrasting views of two men in Trump’s ear, lie two sides of an issue that is plaguing health and nutrition researchers. Is it even possible to change lifestyles and the food environment enough to solve America’s obesity problem? And, if not, do we really want to solve it by putting millions of people on powerful drugs? What is the right balance between the two approaches? Many people find that eating well is easier said than done. Food companies have saturated the United States and other nations with seductively cheap and tasty things to eat, available seemingly everywhere and around the clock. Obesity researchers suspect the current food environment has allowed many Americans to be as overweight as they possibly can be. But for the first time, there is an effective countervailing force – powerful new obesity drugs like Wegovy and Zepbound that allow people to ignore the siren call of high-calorie foods and large portion size
OBESITY LIFESTYLE CHANGES PHARMACEUTICALS FOOD ENVIRONMENT PUBLIC HEALTH
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