Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

news.cornell.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 985 posts

Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#121

Post by 1123581321 »

carlmr wrote: post #6

>The share of U.S. households reporting at least one user rose from about 11% in late 2023 to more than 16% by mid-2024. I was wondering how you could get such a high impact overall. But it seems one in 6 households are on GLP-1 drugs in the US. In my friend circle in Germany I don't even know one single person on this stuff. It's insane to me that so many people need these to get off the processed foods killing them…

Mintel (market data company) claims 8% of Germans have tried a weight-loss drug in the last year and a further 15% are interested. https://www.foodnavigator.com/Article/2025/08/11/glp-1-affec...

Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#122

Post by omgJustTest »

carlmr wrote: post #6

>The share of U.S. households reporting at least one user rose from about 11% in late 2023 to more than 16% by mid-2024. I was wondering how you could get such a high impact overall. But it seems one in 6 households are on GLP-1 drugs in the US. In my friend circle in Germany I don't even know one single person on this stuff. It's insane to me that so many people need these to get off the processed foods killing them…

i considered it, but the gym was a much better option.

for everyone who says "i've tried etc doesnt work" all i would say is, possibly if you dont have the time due to kids etc.

Otherwise, get to it!

Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#123

Post by potato3732842 »

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #53

Yet they seem to be spending more in restaurants: > Ozempic Users Actually Spend More Dining Out. > ..In casual dining establishments, they spend 25% more than non-GLP-1 households do, the market researcher says. Data firm Numerator shares similar findings, noting that while GLP-1 users report eating out less and cooking at home more, their spending says otherwise: “Verified purchase data reveals that their fast-food…

GLP-1s are a fairly strong proxy for having enough discretionary income to justify luxury expenditures like eating out or whatever.

Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#124

Post by nwienert »

carlmr wrote: post #6

>The share of U.S. households reporting at least one user rose from about 11% in late 2023 to more than 16% by mid-2024. I was wondering how you could get such a high impact overall. But it seems one in 6 households are on GLP-1 drugs in the US. In my friend circle in Germany I don't even know one single person on this stuff. It's insane to me that so many people need these to get off the processed foods killing them…

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/iM103vKdI5E

Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#125

Post by cthor »

mschwaig wrote: post #86
u_sama wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For artificial problems, artificial solutions. I think the state of food in the US is really bad, and one cannot compare such products to the superior EU food quality standards and eating habits (and city designs) which render the incentives really perverse

A consequence of universal healthcare that people don't talk about much is that it turns unhealthy citizens from an individual cost into more of a collective one. So it makes sense that countries with universal healthcare regulate in favor of their citizens as opposed to their food industry, because they're paying for the consequences more directly.

Not that this affects the political calculus (where perception may as well be reality), but the cost burden specific to universal healthcare is actually opposite this intuition.

Things like obesity, smoking, and alcoholism all kill you before you can get too old. Healthy citizens end up using far more of the far more expensive end-of-life care, to the point where it outweighs the extra healthcare the unhealthy citizens use in their youth.

Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#127

Post by ChromaticPanic »

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #53

Yet they seem to be spending more in restaurants: > Ozempic Users Actually Spend More Dining Out. > ..In casual dining establishments, they spend 25% more than non-GLP-1 households do, the market researcher says. Data firm Numerator shares similar findings, noting that while GLP-1 users report eating out less and cooking at home more, their spending says otherwise: “Verified purchase data reveals that their fast-food…

Maybe a bias on wealthier households in the US who can afford these drugs. Personally, my total food spending is down 30%. GLP 1 is $66CAD after insurance.

Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#128

Post by aucisson_masque »

> Notably, about one-third of users stopped taking the medication during the study period. When they did, their food spending reverted to pre-adoption levels – and their grocery baskets became slightly less healthy than before they started

That’s very interesting and it confirms what i thought about this drug. It’s a life long commitment. As soon as you stop, you end up becoming your old self whereas you don’t lose all the gains when you stop paying a nutrition expert.

Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#129

Post by eru »

eranation wrote: post #26

That’s an astonishing number. Wouldn’t that be more than enough to cause a decrease in grocery prices?

It depends on how elastic grocery prices are.

And so far it's 5.3% reduction in the spending of <16% of households on the drug for a total reduction of less than 1%. Compared to eg tariffs and general inflation, that's a bit hard to distinguish from noise.

Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#130

Post by kayo_20211030 »

This is wild. 5.3% isn't a small amount, at least not for US consumers.

All economies have deep and sometimes non-obvious dependencies. I'm interested in what happens next.

Will food stores lay off workers? Will they change their mix of offerings? Where is the new equilibrium going to be?

As an example from the piece:

> Only a handful of categories showed increases. Yogurt rose the most, followed by fresh fruit, nutrition bars and meat snacks.

Will the unit prices of these products go up to compensate for the losses in savory snacks?

Post reply on HN