Spoiler alert - I’m bursting your balloon here. Quite literally.
It’s no exaggeration to say that millions of people have had their lives changed by fast-track weight loss meds (Mounjaro and Ozempic jabs, and now Voy pills). Having struggled to lose weight, they now experience before-and-after transformations within months, sometimes weeks. Appetite suppressants trick the brain into thinking the stomach is full and the weight drops off like gravy off a spoon. It’s a great wheeze, and with the most obese accessing prescriptions on the NHS and the rest forking out privately, it’s already a multi-billion pound industry.
But let’s just stop for a minute and think about what this really is.
The Short Truth
I’m unhappy being overweight so I’m taking medication instead of dieting and exercising. Minimal side effects, if any. High success rate. Does what it says on the label. My life will be transformed and all will be well.
Great!
What’s not to like about something which can make people more healthy, remove the misery of negative self-esteem, and save the NHS millions as heart rate, diabetes and other weight-related diseases fall?
Actually, quite a lot.
The Structural Truth
Traditional weight loss programs combine two key components; 1. nutritional awareness (often coupled with an exercise plan), and; 2. psychological awareness of lifestyle choices.
The latter delves into the reasons behind why a person overindulges, whether in food, drink or other excesses. It recognises that transformation needs to be as a result of changing those habits, firstly by understanding where those habits come from. Once the mind is in the right place, the dedication and long, hard pain of diet and exercise can be undertaken and maintained until results are achieved.
It’s a 2-step process, and both steps need to be there.
Mounjaro and Ozempic are replacing the diet/exercise component. They’re fast-tracking the weight loss by replicating the impact on the body previously achieved through a change of diet and a course of fat-busting physicality.
But what about the other part? The psychological process. Getting in the right frame of mind.
The Personal Truth
Every overweight person has a story to tell.
Some will say it’s a genetic thing. Their parents were overweight and they’ve inherited those genes. Or, more likely, those eating habits.
Others will cite life circumstances. For women, child birth is a frequently cited factor. For men, settling down into married life. It might be pressure of work. Drinking culture or unwinding after work with a wine or a beer. The joys of comfort-eating to give a kick to an otherwise mundane life.
Age often comes into it. ‘I could eat whatever I wanted when I was 20. Never put on a pound’. It’s true that the metabolism slows as we age. But not all old people get fat, so it’s not as clearcut as that.
In any case, nutritionists will start with a new patient by delving into their past. Asking questions to locate the likeliest individual reasons for gaining weight.
Like any addiction, the use of excess food and drink would frequently be acting as a comfort for something else fundamentally lacking in that person’s life.
In order to change a person’s eating habits, the person themselves need to change.
A change of mindset is necessary as well as a change of diet. Otherwise, once the pounds drop off and the diet stops, old habits return and the yoyo bounces back up again.
The Long Truth
We’re still in the early stages of the miracle weight-loss generation. It’s less than five years since injections became widely available, and barely two years for pills. Sceptics fear that the fullest side-effects have yet to be recorded.
But this Long Truth deep dive is less about physical side effects, and more about the psychological ones.
The old adage that ‘there’s no gain without pain’ is seemingly obliterated by weight-loss meds. The idea that the journey is more important and rewarding than the destination. As with anything designed to be fast-track, there is no journey.
Weight loss meds are all about the destination. The journey is a zoom-through. All those mini victories as you step on the scales after the discipline of a strict diet and see that you’ve lost half a stone, or sweated it out after twice-weekly sessions down the gym - gone. Feeling great about yourself? Realising that you’ve got qualities you never thought possible - determination, drive, self-discipline, self-belief? Not here.
The Long Truth in this case is a harsh one.
Taking Ozempic or Mounjaro is admitting that you actually don’t possess those personal qualities at all. Or if you do, you’d rather take the easy option and not resort to them.
The state is happy to encourage you in this. In 2026, over 1.2 million people were being prescribed weight-loss meds by the NHS. Ads for privately-sourced medication run openly as a burgeoning source of revenue for both social and mainstream media.
The hype around these meds has made them almost fashionable. Celebrities who previously declared themselves happy with their excess weight, even ‘celebrating’ it as body-positivity, are now racing to shed the quick-loss, sweat-free pounds.
With validation on such a grand scale, anyone doubting the Mounjaro Mantra comes across as a big fat party pooper. Jealous that last year’s fatties are this year’s hotties.
The Long Solution
There’s a strong case for weight-loss meds to be moderated. Instead of losing stones in weeks, a more gradual rate of loss would reintroduce the journey process. Maybe only partial weight-loss should be enabled through medication, with the rest only possible through the more traditional diet and exercise methods.
Allowing morbidly obese people to reduce their weight to a size which allowed them to access the gym less self-consciously seems a perfectly fair and decent way to help people to help themselves.
It’s unlikely that anyone who is overweight with a history of failed diets would turn down the opportunity to lose weight through medication. But how about regulation to say that you can only use it once? After that, it’s down to you.
It would be massively unpopular, uncommercial and arguably unfair.
It would also ensure that fat minds could stop existing temporarily in thin bodies.
I agree that the side effects are still unknown and that includes the psychological effects.