‘A tax on being thin’: only high earners make overall savings on food bills from weight-loss drugs

It is estimated that nearly 3m people in Britain are on weight-loss medication. Most users buy the drugs privately with a prescription. Photograph: Jon Challicom/Getty Images

The high cost of weight-loss medication is a “regressive tax on being thin” because the outlay outweighs any saving on food costs for all but the highest earners.

Someone needs to have discretionary income of nearly £100,000 a year to actually save money after covering the £1,200 annual cost of GLP-1 medication, according to an analysis by the consultancy Baringa.