Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy • Hacker News Board

Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#451

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jan 12, 2026, 5:16 PM UTC

jjk166 wrote: post #353

CGMthrowaway wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. I had the same question and did some back of the envelope math. The data I have seen says the average American eats 400-700 excess daily calories, and 3600 daily calories total. That means 10-20% excess per person. If everyone started eating the right amount overnight, grocery spend would drop…

> The data I have seen says the average American eats 400-700 excess daily calories, and 3600 daily calories total. That means 10-20% excess per person. If everyone started eating the right amount overnight, grocery spend would drop 10-20%. You're falsely assuming a 1:1 ratio between calories and cost. Unfortunately the big problem with ultra processed food is that calorie rich but nutrient deficient food is way chea…

[deleted]

Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#452

Post by derektank » Mon, Jan 12, 2026, 5:17 PM UTC

Raed667 wrote: post #42

Foivos wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The social stigma in Europe exists, because these drugs are in limited supply. So, if a person who does not really need them is using them, the people who actually need them to stay alive might have difficulty accessing them.

that's actually not true, Mounjaro and Wegovy are pretty much meant for weight loss and there is no competition over them for people with diabetes

Mounjaro is the tirzepatide equivalent to Ozempic (semaglutide) in that it’s prescribed for type 2 diabetes. Wegovy (semaglutide) and Zepbound (tirzepatide) are prescribed for obesity. Otherwise you’re spot on.

Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#453

Post by tsimionescu » Mon, Jan 12, 2026, 5:18 PM UTC

whatshisface wrote: post #310

jmpetroske wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As you gain weight, your base metabolic rate also increases. Having fat means you inherently burn more calories, even if you don’t exercise any more. Take one person, say they eat 2000 calories to maintain bodyweight. If they start eating 2500 calories a day, they won’t gain 1lb of fat a week forever. As they gain fat, their body naturally burns more calories due to the increased body weight, and eventually a stable…

Fat does not raise your metabolism by a lot (relatively), and tiny changes in diet lead to massive swings in the equilibrium implied by basal metabolic rate formulas. In fact, some formulas do not include weight due to body fat. If you think about it, that fact touches on the idea that your natural weight is being maintained by another body system, one related to GLP-1. By the way... if humans had to count calories t…

It's not necessarily about BMR - if you maintain a similar activity level as you gain weight, you consume more active calories as well, in almost every activity, particularly the most common ones such as walking.

Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#454

Post by HDThoreaun » Mon, Jan 12, 2026, 5:18 PM UTC

alistairSH wrote: post #259

I'm confused by the language... Within six months of starting a GLP-1 medication, households reduce grocery spending by an average of 5.3%. A household doesn't take Ozempic, a person does. Are they implying that if everybody in the household takes Ozempic, as a group they see a 5% reduction? Or, any one person in the household causes a 5% reduction for the group? The average household in the US is 2.5 people...

How can they measure individual grocery spending habits? People buy groceries for their whole household.

Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#455

Post by observationist » Mon, Jan 12, 2026, 5:18 PM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #400

observationist wrote: post #297

How does this pass as science? There's no economic correction. They're making causal claims without identifying mechanisms. Self selection bias, self reporting, the people being polled are the type of people who answer polls. Massive conflicts of interest with one of the authors benefiting from the company collecting the data. They don't collect causal medical information, and cannot justify any of the causality clai…

I agree with this take 100%. But also, anecdotally, I do know a number of people who saved enough on their grocery bill to pay for their GLP1. But whether that applies across the whole population, I've no idea.

I'd guess a majority of people could save more than enough in groceries just by planning meals and making an effort to budget instead of going on autopilot to afford GLP-1 drugs. Heck, I'd bet a majority of households eat way too much fast food and restaurant meals, and just doing things on purpose would mean hundreds of dollars a month per person in savings.

"Doctors recommend this one simple life hack to revolutionize your grocery budget!" Or something like that.

GLP1 confounds things with the psychological impact as well; it apparently allows for more executive agency, disrupts the impulsive behaviors and cycles people get into, and might allow for some high discipline strategies that the simple calories difference in groceries don't account for.

It's not that there's no interesting questions to be asked, this paper is just awful. Everything about it is bad.

Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#456

Post by jjk166 » Mon, Jan 12, 2026, 5:19 PM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #380

alphazard wrote: post #357

Strange to think that the whole obesity epidemic was essentially people buying 5% more calories than they should have.

Only strange because everyone who likes to be holier-than-thou claims the problem is all about stuffing your face with candy. Your number is off by as much as a factor of 10, by the way. The average American gains a pound a year or so, which is 1% or even less of a surplus.

Your conclusion is correct but the average weight gain is rather misleading. If people were actually gaining weight at that rate, then obesity would take decades to develop. In reality it's really more of an S curve where people quickly put on a lot of weight and then it levels off afterwards. So the overwhelming majority have stable weight, but a small fraction have very quickly increasing rates at any given time, leading to a small positive average.

Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#457

Post by HDThoreaun » Mon, Jan 12, 2026, 5:19 PM UTC

jdhdjdjd333 wrote: post #325

siliconc0w wrote: post #318

This is why if we can get them down to ~$50 I think they are clearly +ROI just on the individual level. I snack, drink less, and feel like eating out significantly less. Or when I do those things, I eat the take-out meal over multiple-meals. 1-2 less takeaway meals and a svelter grocery bill due to the less booze or snacks probably is at least $50 if not more.

Something feels extremely dystopian about this statement that I cannot quite put my finger on. I hate to say it, but I do not think taking meds to curb snacking sounds healthy. Just learn some self control.

Something feels extremely dystopian about this statement and I have no issue putting my finger on it. Stop judging others for how they want to live their life

Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#458

Post by staticassertion » Mon, Jan 12, 2026, 5:20 PM UTC

lm28469 wrote: post #442

staticassertion wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not talking to you about obesity. I'm talking to you about the idiotic statement that you have insight into the qualia of other people. Everything else you're saying is irrelevant, I'm not trying to explain all obesity or whatever by appealing to cravings, I'm saying you're an idiot if you think you have insight into qualia.

But surely you realise something doesn't add up... Either cravings somehow automagically drastically changed in two generations or you're plain wrong. > you have insight into the qualia of other people. Yeah that's called statistics, averages, &c.

No, that's still really dumb. For example, maybe we always had radically divergent populations with regards to cravings but limited access to food. It's so easy to come up with situations to account for.

And again, you can not say your cravings are the same as others. I'm not going to explain qualia to you.

Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#459

Post by seanmcdirmid » Mon, Jan 12, 2026, 5:22 PM UTC

jdhdjdjd333 wrote: post #325

siliconc0w wrote: post #318

This is why if we can get them down to ~$50 I think they are clearly +ROI just on the individual level. I snack, drink less, and feel like eating out significantly less. Or when I do those things, I eat the take-out meal over multiple-meals. 1-2 less takeaway meals and a svelter grocery bill due to the less booze or snacks probably is at least $50 if not more.

Something feels extremely dystopian about this statement that I cannot quite put my finger on. I hate to say it, but I do not think taking meds to curb snacking sounds healthy. Just learn some self control.

Poor people can stop being poor by just earning more money.

Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#460

Post by zahlman » Mon, Jan 12, 2026, 5:22 PM UTC

jjk166 wrote: post #353

CGMthrowaway wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. I had the same question and did some back of the envelope math. The data I have seen says the average American eats 400-700 excess daily calories, and 3600 daily calories total. That means 10-20% excess per person. If everyone started eating the right amount overnight, grocery spend would drop…

> The data I have seen says the average American eats 400-700 excess daily calories, and 3600 daily calories total. That means 10-20% excess per person. If everyone started eating the right amount overnight, grocery spend would drop 10-20%. You're falsely assuming a 1:1 ratio between calories and cost. Unfortunately the big problem with ultra processed food is that calorie rich but nutrient deficient food is way chea…

> calorie rich but nutrient deficient food is way cheaper than the less processed foods

I hear this a lot but I really don't see good evidence for it. And people keep peddling stereotypes about "fast food" consumption after QSRs saw much larger price increases than grocery stores. For that matter, the UPFs are where I see people most commonly reach for overpriced name brands over the generics.