New Drugs May Lead to Sea Change in Addressing Obesity
October 31, 2025
The number of Americans taking GLP-1 drugs for weight loss has increased markedly since early 2024, which is “helping bring down the country’s obesity rate,” NPR reports. In Issues, Laura A. Schmidt and Luc L. Hagenaars argue that beyond the drugs’ personal impact, their success could shift cultural assumptions away from obesity as an individual problem to a societal problem of ultraprocessed food and ineffective food policies. The authors propose a range of ideas to “generate policy momentum in healthier directions,” including borrowing from the policy tools successfully honed over decades to reduce use of alcohol and tobacco.