Dear Dad,
This week I’ve been moved to go off script. Since you know me quite well you can appreciate how strongly I must feel about this topic to get knocked off my preferred routine and schedule. I can’t help it, because they’re recommending that we drug the kids.
This year, for the first time the American Pediatric Association sanctioned the use of weight-loss drugs to treat obese children as young as 12 years old.
Before we dive deep. Let’s get on the same page upfront. I don’t want to be an alarmist or persuade using bombastic claims. There hasn’t been widespread child drug dosing…yet. But the groundwork is being laid and I cannot remain silent. The notion that an acceptable remedy to childhood obesity is a once a week injection flies in the face of my deeply considered health convictions, lifestyle philosophy, and acquired wisdom on the subject.
As my first letter indicated, right of the bat, the core of my motivation in writing each week:
“Sadly, marketing has shaped our collective medical identity around negativity. Industry has defined our starting point as unhealthy failures with a narrow path to optimal health. This is nonsense. We don’t start unhealthy. Every person’s vocation is a well-balanced lifestyle full of fun exercise and clean fresh food. We must reject the negativity notion. The healthy person within you doesn’t need any magic product or extreme routine.”
How did we get here? Well, it’s true that nearly 20% of children are now classified as obese to go along with the nearly 40% of the adult population also medically confined to this designation. A whopping 70% of the general population is classified as at least overweight. Growth of exponential proportions in a mere two generations. By consequence, health care has become the largest and fastest growing industry in the county.
From these ashes the American Pediatric Association has spoken. This esteemed authority on childhood medicine now promotes pharmaceutical intervention for obese children in some cases.
“Pediatricians…should offer adolescents aged 12 years and older with obesity weight loss pharmacotherapy, according to medication indications, risks, and benefits, as an adjunct to health behavior and lifestyle treatment.” 1
The drug of choice: Ozempic
Ozempic and its competitors come from a class of drugs called semaglutides. These drugs are unapologetically brain chemistry altering injections. I remember when substances used to alter brain chemistry were blacklisted to school aged children. In fact, all kids in my school signed pledges not to use such substances, and even performed an assembly song and dance for you and Mom to watch as part of the say no to drugs D.A.R.E. program. Now, doctors have been given the green light to prescribe such drugs to kids.
Semaglutides affect weight-loss by manipulating the pleasure pathways in the brain.2 3 Basically, through pharma mumbo-jumbo (actually pretty cool science), Ozempic is meant to make your brain desire food less leading you to consume less food, while still deriving the same level of enjoyment from the food that you do eat. The drug is administered via an injection once per week meant to continue in perpetuity. A twelve year old prescribed these drugs = a customer for life.
In effect, this intervention will take a mass cohort of children (up to 20% of our countries future adults) and further disconnect the association between a perceived beneficial outcome and the discipline required to achieve it. Though we will be absconding to teach these kids about the meaningful interaction between food, exercise, and health; don’t think that we’re not teaching them anything. This quick fix approach will reinforce the notorious ideal that people are entitled to the results they desire; no discipline required.
Mulling this reality in my head last week, I was struck with passion, borderline anger, and an unrelenting need to write because it was apparent to me that 20 years ago —as a 12 year old kid, I may have been a candidate to receive these “health saving” injections. Consistently hitting the scales above the 95th percentile for my age, a death grip on any soda can I could hold, and being unable to quit eating donuts after just one; had I been a child in 2023 my fate of health purgatory might have been sealed—a life condemned to weekly injections to reinforce a misplaced belief that health can be reduced to the amount of “food” consumed no matter its composition. Bring on the soda and donuts just in smaller amounts.
What would such an entitlement have done to my mind? To the work ethic I subsequently developed? To the happiness I’ve captured as an adult?
It’s with a strong sense of gratitude and a degree of sorrow for the younger generations, that I am thankful to embrace the struggle and engage in the personal battle every day to be healthier and happier. I’m thankful to know the shame of failing. The struggle of saying no. The mindset of a twelve year old wishing that an inconsistent handful of sit-ups would bring overnight change. The joy of small successes. The ensuing nutrition curiosity. Making connections. Noticeable progress. The momentum. Empowerment. More work to do. Confidence.
In this process I fell into the perfect collision of budding athletic promise, an unquenchable curiosity, a desire to improve, and found motivation to be better, look better, and feel better. Done another way, with a shot to the arm, I would have never meticulously investigated the path towards optimizing health, or learned to love a morning jog outside, or sit down to a large salad bowl full of colorful vegetables and beans with a smile stretching from ear to ear. Nope. That wouldn’t be my story.
Last weekend I was preparing for a 2-hour bike/run workout as I look toward a few triathlon races in summer 2024. I texted Jenna before I peddled off. She responded, “Have fun.”
I spent half of the bike ride chuckling to myself. “Have fun.” For a two-hour workout! I shook my head with satisfaction because of my response. “I will!” In fact, I had looked forward to it all week. Could you imagine what 12 year old me would have thought, said, or done? Because I can’t.
If the kid that I was could change, the kids today can change, and so can anyone. But you can’t skip the struggle of learning and expect to be enlightened.
With Love,
JSR
Thanks for sounding the alarm, Sam. It's horrendous news. There must be more than nutrition education to solve this problem, though. For the kids who are numbing out with food (medicating their emotional pain by eating), drugs further disconnect them from their bodies/emotions. I loved reading how your story turned out! Thanks for sharing...
Agree 100 percent. We need nutrition education in schools to deal with the obesogenic environment not a quick fix, and for those who recommend a lifetime on drugs, do they even know what the long term side effects could be?