Ozempic for kids? You’re having a laugh

This kind of topic and conversation often has me conflicted. On the one hand, we should do everything to help people who suffer from severe obesity, are therefore susceptible to health complications, and want to lose the weight. On the other hand is the way it’s done which I believe is really important too. The question we have to ask is how we reconcile these two potentially completely opposite points of view.

I think a good place to start is if we consider the long term implications for the quick fix scenario. Do we even know the long term implications yet and could we be rushing into a band aid solution that has the potential to be much more damaging in the long run? If we dissect this a bit maybe we can resolve it. Although, I’m pretty sure I already know which way I am leaning more towards.

It’s the new lose weight fast drug popularly known as Ozempic and Wegovy that is being touted everywhere. It is very popular among celebrities and influencers who are promoting it as the next big miracle, so naturally the public see it and demand to have it too. 

One thing you have to understand is that when you see someone tell a story or post something online, first and foremost, it is just a frozen curated piece of time and space that they are showing you. It will all be developed within a short period in which they will curate this media and then use this for some time longer saying this is the best thing since sliced bread and show you the results. However, they don’t show you the follow up in the future and they definitely won’t show you if it went wrong or if there were any negative side effects or results.

You probably already know how the trend effect works. It starts with a few fitness characters talking about how it helped them, then it spirals. Now, just one quick search on Google of this product and you will get plenty of results of websites selling it. Look a bit more and you will see articles and people talking about it and promoting it. Essentially, you are now being told that this is the new key, and here’s where you can easily buy it, potentially unregulated.

An adult, who has tried different things to lose weight or get healthy and hasn’t managed it for one reason or another, I’m less concerned if they decide to get a bit of help with the temporary use of a drug. As long as it’s been approved, proven effective and not detrimental to the individual’s health. We all have our own minds to make up and are entitled to make our own choices. Either way, it should be taken with caution, on the advice of a medical doctor, and alongside healthy lifestyle changes.

But I start to question things when the health system decides it wants to offer it to obese children for life. This is when things start to get a bit murky. For a start, the long term effects are still unknown. And this has been said in the open. I heard a conversation a couple of weeks ago between a presenter on LBC and a professor in biochemistry at the University of Cambridge, who is very enthusiastic about the use of Ozempic and offering it to children, in which the professor actually caveated that the drug only has a couple of years of safety test data even for adults. But he still believes it’s a good idea. 

What is really concerning even more so though is how it would affect the child mentally. I know we’re living in a generation of quick access and demand for immediate results, but how far can this go? The thing about fitness is that it’s not only about the result. It’s also about the journey and the changes you make along the way. The skills you develop, the resolve and discipline that comes with personal development. The understanding that you don’t have to have everything you want, and the fact that even when it’s so hard to believe, you can actually achieve most things you set yourself to do.

Sometimes you need to put the work in. A lesson in development that you can take and implement in pretty much every aspect of your life. A practice that you can hone and improve on, developing the right mindset as you work towards your fitness goal. Taking a “miracle” drug that suppresses your appetite, not only removes all of this, but actually teaches the child the opposite lesson that they don’t have to do anything. They don’t have to work for anything. Have we just given up on educating and actually helping children?

I’m so grateful I took on the weight loss and challenged myself at the young age that I did. Besides the fact that the journey I embarked on which continues until today, gave me so much, taught me so much, and helped me develop, I can’t begin to imagine what would have happened if I hadn’t lost the weight when I did or the way I did.