Can you imagine getting the Ozempic out of the fridge at breakfast time – not to jab yourself, but your child?
Or, letting your teen inject themselves, perhaps as a special, end-of-exams treat, because they’ve convinced you to let them look “beach-body ready” for their 16th birthday party in Ibiza? You might send them off to school feeling a little nauseous, due to the skinny jab’s side effects, but at least you know it’ll curb their appetite – and get them off your back for a bit.
I can only imagine the level of pester power us parents are going to be hit with by kids wanting Ozempic if ever it is made generally available as a weight-loss treatment. But I, for one, wouldn’t give it to my children if you paid me.
According to a recent study in the US, the number of children on weight-loss drugs is on the rise – massively. Researchers at the University of Michigan and Yale have revealed that monthly prescriptions for GLP-1 drugs – which includes Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro – for 12- to 15-year-olds has shot up, from 8,700 in 2020 to a staggering 60,000 in 2023. That’s an increase of almost 600 per cent in three years.
And this is not limited to America, either. “Promising” NHS-affiliated trials of the drugs have opened up the possibility of Ozempic-style injections being made available to young people looking to lose weight.
But, to my mind, the possibility of children routinely taking Ozempic ought to stop us in our tracks.
I understand childhood obesity is a real issue that needs to be addressed. My heart goes out to those parents thinking of weight-loss drugs as a panacea, or even a preemptive measure. Who wouldn’t want to put an end to their child getting bullied for being overweight in the playground – or stop those stressful family arguments over their little one’s bad eating habits?
But, as someone who has taken Ozempic, I worry that if children start taking weight-loss medication, they could be on it for life.
The weekly jabs have already been hailed as a slimming miracle, with overweight patients able to lose up to a fifth of their body weight within a year of starting treatment, as happened to me. But we don’t yet know about long-term safety.
And what of “Ozempic rebound”? Some research has shown that nearly one in five who come off it will regain all, or even more, of the weight that they lost. Once you’ve started spending £160 a month on jabs, could you afford to stop?
So would I let my children, Lola and Liberty – now 8 and 6, respectively – take Ozempic if, one day, they begged me? The simple answer is no. It’s not the moral issue of medicalising childhood that gives me pause as much as personal experience: I know the dramatic effect of these weight-loss drugs can itself be addictive.
Ozempic definitely worked for me. It stopped the niggling “I’m hungry” chatter. A skinny pen seemed like a good idea when, after two pregnancies and years of comfort eating, I piled on the pounds. When my cholesterol rocketed to dangerously high levels, my GP told me to lose weight.
A course of weight-loss jabs seemed like the answer – until I reached a decent weight and tried to stop. When the constant hunger pangs returned, I was terrified I might put back on all the weight I’d lost. I stocked up on the drug, just in case I caught myself overeating again.
Others, like Sharon Osbourne, have had the opposite problem, slimming down so much that they find it hard to put weight back on.
With that in mind, it horrifies me that my children may one day ask me for Ozempic, rather than a Furby Interactive, for Christmas. But it has become the norm among so much of the adult population that the behaviour is bound to trickle down to our kids.
I already have one eye on Lola, who has an insatiable desire for chocolate. What happens when she’s a teen and gets ridiculed in the netball line-up because she hasn’t lost her puppy weight? Will I cave in? Will I feel tempted to let her try it if it helps her self-esteem – as it did for me after I lost two stone?
No. My advice is, unless you are clinically obese, don’t let your child near Ozempic. It’s a rollercoaster that’s hard to get off.
