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Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

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Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#481

Post by rkomorn »

doug_durham wrote: post #472
paul7986 wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We all drive to where we’re going we do not walk or bike daily like most Europeans do. When in Europe for my ten day trips I always come back five to ten pounds lighter. Myself I count calories (1500 to 1800 a day for middle aged dude) and lol drive to do my daily five mile walks on a rail trail. Foods here if ur lazy and just buy whatever indeed are lasted with preservatives but you can put some effort into ur healt…

Most Europeans do not bike daily. Most drive cars where they need to go. You are not losing 5 to 10 pounds in 10 days (unless you are dehydrating yourself). 5 pounds would be a 17,500 calorie deficit or 1,750 per day. The base metabolism for a male is around 1800 calories. That means that you'd be eating 1/10th of a banana every day to get that type of loss. For me a century bike ride (100 miles with 5,000ft of climb…

Math checks out.

I'm someone whose weight easily oscillates by 2kg (1kg up/down from my average trend line), and it took a while to accept only the trend line over several weeks matters.

Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#482

Post by malfist »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #327
FatherOfCurses wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tons of Americans want to eat healthy but don't have the energy/time/access. It's easy to cook healthy for yourself if you're single, have a good work/life balance, and have a grocery store nearby. There are a lot of Americans who eat fast food on the go because it's their only option (or they haven't been educated on how to get healthy food quickly). Others have lives where job and family responsibilities sap so muc…

This is narrative ignores consumer preference. A salad can be delivered as easily as a pizza.

Goodluck getting a healthy salad delivered outside of a major metropolitan area. In my city of a quarter million (not huge, not small) the options are pretty much limited to two or three places that only offer high caloric salads

Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#483

Post by Melatonic »

For those that really need to lose weight I think these drugs are likely hugely beneficial. Obesity has so many downsides and is a huge net drain on healthcare systems.

In terms of long term effects the only medical study I saw that concerned me was done on rats and showed a decrease specifically in the muscles of the heart. This was taking into account general weight loss and appetite suppression (which might more generally affect muscle mass). Not hugely concerning for the obese that might see massive benefits but for those who are already a healthy weight and taking it to get 6 pack abs it might be something to consider.

Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#484

Post by foxyv »

cptcobalt wrote: post #473

> Notably, about one-third of users stopped taking the medication during the study period. This isn't always the patient's choice—my insurance/PBM (CVS Caremark) dropped coverage for the GLP-1 that I was taking (Zepbound) and had several rounds of prior-authorization shenanigans over a few months before they approved the previous-generation GLP-1, Wegovy. Now I've had to start the ramp-up of a different medication ag…

Insurance companies should have to refund your premium when they do this for the time period they are making a decision. It's gotten absurd how badly they are abusing patients.

Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#485

Post by mullingitover »

lm28469 wrote: post #403
mullingitover wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not remotely weird: people were poorer and food was more scarce across the board pre-WWII.

But how did people survive their craving, they must have all been completely on the verge of insanity right? Are all these lean and healthy people from archive videos actually suffering and in distress? Poor souls...

> Are all these lean and healthy people

Vast numbers of these 'lean and healthy people' were suffering from serious nutritional deficiencies. Pellagra (generally caused by eating nothing but corn) wasn't really knocked out until around WWII, for example.

Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#486

Post by malfist »

carlmr wrote: post #475
malfist wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the average American eats 400-700 excess daily calories This can't possibly be true. A caloric surplus of 500cal/day adds a pound of weight per week. That'd mean in a decade of life the _average_ American would add an additional 260 pounds. In 4 decades Americans would add half a ton to their waistline, on average. That'd mean at then end of their life the average American would die weighing over 2 tons

The question is how you calculate or define excess. For one, excess calories aren't 100% stored as fat. We're not that efficient. Additionally the fatter you are the more calories you use at rest. So there's a point where if you consistently eat too much you'll stop gaining weight. The biggest source of error here will be the calories in the garbage bin though. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of this is stored in th…

If I throw away 500 calories of food, I'm not eating an excess 500 calories. Let's not engage in equivocation

Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#487

Post by amanaplanacanal »

pjc50 wrote: post #67
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…

Obesity is not evenly distributed by age or demographic. If you're a relatively young person in the workforce, you probably don't know such people. But it is true that obesity is much less prevalent in most of Europe. Even the places with less "healthy" diets, suprisingly.

But obesity rates are going up there, too, they are just lagging behind the Anglo world.

Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#488

Post by alexfoo »

jollyllama wrote: post #352
alexfoo wrote: post #317

It's not just GLP-1 type drugs. My grocery spending has fallen significantly since I started ADHD medication. Both lisdexamfetamine and methylphenidate absolutely zeroed my appetite. When I walk around a grocery store I'm no longer tempted by anything I didn't actively go in to buy. This is a huge shift from my pre-medication days.

This comment is more insightful than it may appear initially. It looks like the 5% drop is in comparison to the pre-Ozempic spending. To what extent is the cut on spending monetary i.e. "I am spending more on this drug and will cut back my other expenses." Sure, Ozempic will kill the cravings, and that is probably the main driver, but from a 5000 foot view, this is using money to buy drugs instead of foods. In a very…

> "I am spending more on this drug...

I'm in the UK and got my ADHD diagnosis on the NHS (well, via Right To Choose) so the maximum I'll ever pay for my medication is about US$150/year. [1]

If I had a private diagnosis I'd be paying about half that a month for the same medication.

Anyone with a BMI over 35 is likely to qualify for GLP-1 type drugs on the NHS too. Not sure how long they'll keep prescribing them to you if you take them and lose lots of weight. Most people I know on GLP-1 type things are paying lots (US$200 or more) a month privately.

1. £114.50 for a Prepayment Certificate covering all prescriptions for a year: https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/help-nhs-prescription-costs/nhs-pr...

Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#489

Post by bluedino »

sjsdaiuasgdia wrote: post #313
bluedino wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I should have compared individuals then. One apple can be had for less than dollar and one snack cake is over a dollar Either way people should be eating apples, bananas, pears (as well as cheese, nuts...), instead of snack cakes.

When you think of it in the context of a person with not much cash or time to work with, there's other advantages Little Debbie brings... - It's extremely unlikely that any of the snack cakes in a particular box on the shelf have gone bad or have rotten areas. They must carefully inspect a bag of apples for brown spots or risk getting less usable product than they paid for. - The snack cakes can sit at home for a rea…

If you're going to use those excuses, don't forget to add that economically disadvantage folks can't buy in bulk because they don't have enough money, and live in food deserts where people can't buy in bulk, and they don't have anywhere to store those items.
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