Weighty questions over quick-fix obesity cure

One of the world's strongest men works near me. You wouldn't think so to look at him. He's a scrawny teenager. Thin arms. Shoulders so narrow you'd swear he's forgotten to remove the coat hanger from his shirt. But I still call him Hercules.

Every night Hercules emerges from the kitchen doors of the local RSL club hauling gigantic plates of deep-fried chicken schnitzels smothered in chips and gravy; towering burgers speared by garden-sized stakes to prevent them from toppling; bowls of Everest-sized nachos slathered in melted cheese and carnivore pizzas so massive they could feed a village.

The portions are enormous, even by the standards of our super-sized world. The only thing more staggering than Hercules' remarkable strength as a waiter is how so many of these plates are empty by evening's end. By 9pm the joint resembles a stubbled wheat field after a locust invasion. Not a scrap to be seen.

No surprise, then, that a hastily-scrawled note was stuck to the front door of the local pharmacy earlier this week. "We now have limited supplies of Ozempic," it announced.

The stampede was on. A day later the sign was gone. Ozempic, in case you haven't heard, is a diabetes drug with weight-loss properties that social media has transformed into a worldwide phenomenon.

The market value of the Danish pharmaceutical company behind Ozempic, Novo Nordisk, now exceeds the size of Denmark's economy. The craze for Ozempic and Wegovy, a higher-dose sister drug specifically targeting obesity, has created worldwide shortages expected to last at least another year.

Obesity drugs promise to reshape our economy while bringing some much-needed economy to our shapes.

Because of them, many multinational companies that have spent decades combining fat, sugar and salt to turn millions of us into processed food addicts have suffered share price drops amid growing doubts about their futures.

Medications like Ozempic and Wegovy involve weekly injections and mimic a brain hormone that regulates appetite and food intake. You don't need an economics degree to realise widespread adoption of these obesity drugs will shorten our fast-food drive-thru queues and lower food consumption throughout the First World.

A Morgan Stanley study last year found people taking hunger-suppressing drugs visited fast food outlets 73 per cent less frequently, prompting a prediction of a sharp decline in sales of sugary carbonated drinks that drive so many restaurant chain profits.

Hooray, you say. Who will shed tears for Maccas and Colonel Sanders, or even the local RSL with its absurdly sized offerings? Obesity, with its diabetes, blood pressure and cardiovascular side effects, is rightly labelled an epidemic. Two years ago the number of obese or overweight Australians rose to almost 66 per cent. The government estimates the issue will cost the Australian economy almost $90 billion annually by 2032.

But should specific weight-loss drugs be subsidised by taxpayers? To put it bluntly, is providing cheap obesity drugs simply a quick-fix method of rewarding gluttony?

The fattening of our nation has been mirrored by an increasing normalisation of obesity and a lessening in personal responsibility. Even raising issues like the proliferation of "plus-size models" and the growth of stores catering to XL men prompts accusations of "body-shaming".

Obesity can certainly be a side-effect for those who turn to comfort eating when suffering depression or other anxiety-related issues. But surely the key driver of our expanding waistlines is overeating and laziness. In a world swamped with information, where knowledge is just a click away, ignorance about nutrition is no longer an excuse. The math is simple. Energy intake exceeding energy expenditure equals weight gain.

Ozempic and Wegovy have both been approved as safe by our Therapeutic Goods Administration. But only Ozempic, with its justifiable diabetes benefits, is sold here and listed under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.

A second application by Novo Nordisk to have Wegovy added to the PBS, allowing the drug to cost just $30 a month for eligible patients, was recently rejected by a government committee on the basis that Wegovy would not be cost effective compared to a placebo "accompanied by diet and exercise".

Now there's a novel dietary formula. Apparently it's worked for thousands of years. But don't worry. You can bet the Danes' lobbyists will be back petitioning for their product again. Obesity drugs are not going away. Like Viagra, they offer the promise of restoring us to a better, earlier model of ourselves.

Nothing wrong with wanting that. We just have to decide whether our taxes should allow society's heavyweights to have their cake and eat it too.

HAVE YOUR SAY: Have you used a weight-loss drug and did it work for you? Any side-effects? Should Australia subsidise obesity drugs like Wegovy? How do you cope with the enormous portions served at restaurants and clubs? Email us: echidna@theechidna.com.au

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THEY SAID IT: "How much obesity has to be created in a single decade for people to realise that diet has to be responsible for it?" Robert Atkins

YOU SAID IT: After predictions that El Nino would make for a hot, dry summer, the season delivered lots of rain and humidity across the eastern seaboard.

Ivan defends the Bureau of Meteorology: "Considering the huge number of variables involved, the BOM does a better job than we could expect of the Star Casino."

Not so Arthur: "How can you lose faith when you had none in the first place? For my neck of the woods it has been a hot dry summer just as predicted.. One size does not fit all. Spring is my favourite season when everything sprouts new beautiful growth assuming some rain comes."

Ian writes: "Tamworth has missed any rain and is bone dry."

"I haven't lost faith in weather predictions," writes Tony. "Up to a week ahead they are often very accurate. Longer range forecasts by definition have a greater degree of uncertainty. If the seas continue to be warmer then predictions based on past records will be less accurate. Autumn is my preferred season due to lower humidity, but still usually sunny."

Jennifer writes: "With multiple interacting dynamic variables determining the weather, predicting future weather is like predicting what a human being is likely to do in the future. Not easy. Always involves uncertainty, as all the variables feeding into the situation (and thus the outcome) may change. When any one variable changes, it can cause a dramatic shift in the outcome, while if many variables change, prediction becomes a re-estimation (via modelling) of how all these things may interact to cause many possible scenarios. Then it's necessary to decide which is most likely, with this shifting as more information becomes available. There have been a couple of brilliant articles explaining how the changes to sea temperature, land temperature and numerous other things have brought us to this point, while chaos theory shows that when many variables change just a little, outcomes can change dramatically and that's what we expect with climate change."