WHO Approves Ozempic / Mounjaro for 170 Million Children and Teens

The WHO has given the green light to Ozempic and Mounjaro for use in treatment from the age of 10years, with 170 million children and adolescents around the world affected by significant overweight

Sadly, the only article I could locate on this is in German, though Google Translate can help you out

That figure struck me as far too small at first, but since it covers obesity alone rather than overweight as well, it becomes a little more plausible. Still, the parents of roughly just 1% of these children would be in a position to pay for GLP medications on prescription, which means I struggle to picture them as a practical answer in the real world unless prices fall substantially. On top of that, the idea of handing grey glps to children comes across as an ethical nightmare.

lessthanhalf said:

That figure struck me as far too small at first, but since it covers obesity alone rather than overweight as well, it becomes a little more plausible. Still, the parents of roughly just 1% of these children would be in a position to pay for GLP medications on prescription, which means I struggle to picture them as a practical answer in the real world unless prices fall substantially. On top of that, the idea of handing grey glps to children comes across as an ethical nightmare.

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I'm with you — a lot of parents just don't have the means to give their kids what they need...

Still, I haven't lost hope that political attitudes will change at some point, and that the biggest winners from this crisis will be forced to pay for it.

Taxing companies such as Coca-Cola, Pepsi, McDonald's, Burger King, A&W, 7-Eleven and the rest at a proper level, so the money covers what comes from eating these "indulgence products," would be a first step.

Whatever has worked for tobacco and cigarettes ought to work just as well for junk food. I've been going to Southeast Asia for close to 40 years, and for the past few years I've been living here full time.

30 years ago you could barely find junk food chains in Thailand, and overweight people were rare. Sadly, things look different now; kids get filled up with junk food from 7-Eleven because it's fast and cheap.

Right now I'm in Hanoi, Vietnam; over here it's still the way Thailand was 30 years ago, and you almost never spot an overweight person on the streets.

This looks like a situation that invites abuse and/or misuse. Sure, the approval is meant for obesity alone, but realistically I doubt it will only end up in the hands of that group. It's easy to picture teens at a healthy weight being handed GLP-1 prescriptions so they can chase harmful ideals of thinness (and by that I specifically mean the danger of eating too few calories during puberty and what that does to development, separate from the body image side of things).

As a kid, I was obese, and I came out of it with a fairly damaged body image (and the obesity didn't stop at childhood, either). Would my parents having put me on a weekly injection for being fat have hurt me more or less than all those fad diets did? I honestly can't say.

Still… in the end it comes down to the doctor, the parents, and the child. If the evidence firmly shows it's safe for bodies that are still developing, then what I'm objecting to is purely an ethical matter.

Honestly, I have serious doubts about whether this is a wise move.

That's quite something. What kind of dosing schedule do you think they'd use for children?

That's a huge number of overweight children whose parents aren't doing their job.

I really don't know how to feel about this. My mind goes straight to the almond moms out there, the ones who'd look at their totally healthy daughters (just as one example) and insist they need these drugs because they're too heavy Honestly, I hope it's brutally difficult for parents to obtain them — but then there's the grey market... ugh, this whole thing just leaves me feeling awful. Awful that kids are in a position to need this, awful that parents might misuse it, awful that it could end up standing in for real nutrition and for actual parenting when it comes to health. It's honestly just pretty heartbreaking.