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Study links GLP-1 drugs to bigger jump in women's employment than a degree

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Re: Study links GLP-1 drugs to bigger jump in women's employment than a degree

#81

This has been the case for a long time, even with attributes that you have far less control over, such as your height [1]. Given typical social prejudices, I would not be surprised if the height effect was greater for men and the weight effect was greater for women. GLP-1 drugs seem to provide a (relatively) painless way to control the weight effect; the corresponding treatment for control of height [2] is much more…

in an era when interviews are done by zoom, is there a height effect for men?

Perhaps not in the early part of the hiring pipeline but unless the entire hiring process is remote (I've done this once so it's not impossible), sooner or later the full physical appearance is going to get judged.

I did have a weird experience right before the pandemic where the CTO of our company, who had never met me in person before but we'd been on tons of Zoom calls, got visibly upset and even said he'd been tricked, because I was older than he thought. That wasn't a good sign for my future in the slice of the company. The irony here is that he was near retirement age and has since retired. Still, my professional headshot, which was at least a decade old, appears to have set expectations. Guess even on a video call people sometimes see what they expect to see and only during an in-person meeting do they have to confront reality.

Re: Study links GLP-1 drugs to bigger jump in women's employment than a degree

#82
post #42
post #3

Lookism is pretty serious, folks. Or whatever you want to call it since that one sounds silly. Maybe a makeover should be suggested more often in job search advice? Work on your hair and diet for a few months before you jump ship and you could have better luck.

Might be different for programmers… my experience is that—broadly speaking—programming ability is inversely proportional to how well dressed you are. I wonder if that is still true, or if I’m just old.

honest question - did that cliche ever apply to women? or non-white people?

i'm well aware of the stereotype but 100% of the time, seen it as a scrubby white guy in a hoodie.

Re: Study links GLP-1 drugs to bigger jump in women's employment than a degree

#83
The original paper is quite readable and interesting in how the researcher works through a number of alternative hypotheses.

https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w35387/w353...

An tangential part of the paper is partnered men:

  Among baseline partnered men (which is where partnership dissolution is 
  well-defined), I find a 6.8pp increase in men leaving their baseline partners 
  (s.e. 2.9), which rises to 12.1pp after 1.5+ years (s.e. 6.1). Unlike women, 
  partnered men leave existing relationships with weight loss.

Re: Study links GLP-1 drugs to bigger jump in women's employment than a degree

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh god… if only I could quit food, too.

No but like... why is it a concern? Money? The health problems that GLPs produce help people avoid are way more costly than the drugs will ever be. Especially now that the market is so competitive and will only get moreso.

For me, historically drugs like this for ADHD or depression or gastric bypass or whatever tend to lose effectiveness over time as the body adjusts. Not for everyone but for enough where you've got a short term gain that ultimately compounds the original problem.

Medication can be a slippery slope into side effects and rotating dosages/medicines. Especially for behavioral medicines.

Re: Study links GLP-1 drugs to bigger jump in women's employment than a degree

#85
post #76
post #34

But if everyone takes GLP-1 ... its a level playing field again

It puts a finger on the scale. Which unfortunately lasts as long as the person takes the drug. What happens when they stop taking it, unless they were on some serious strength trailing, is that they will have lost all the muscle they need to burn the extra calories they will start to eat when they transition off the drug. Which means the weight comes back even faster. The body has no mechanism to break down fat cells…

Those fat cells will be screaming for fat when empty. GLP-1s are a drug for life currently, we aren't treating them as such but we should because there is no avoiding the need to continue to quiet those fat cells down from their errant signalling to the brain.

Re: Study links GLP-1 drugs to bigger jump in women's employment than a degree

#86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in an era when interviews are done by zoom, is there a height effect for men?

Perhaps not in the early part of the hiring pipeline but unless the entire hiring process is remote (I've done this once so it's not impossible), sooner or later the full physical appearance is going to get judged. I did have a weird experience right before the pandemic where the CTO of our company, who had never met me in person before but we'd been on tons of Zoom calls, got visibly upset and even said he'd been tr…

> but unless the entire hiring process is remote (I've done this once so it's not impossible)

FYI this is the norm for fully remote positions, at least in my experience

Re: Study links GLP-1 drugs to bigger jump in women's employment than a degree

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really wish these weren’t forever drugs. I would be next in line.

Do you have the same concerns about water or food? Why does it matter that it stops benefitting you if you stop taking it?

Water and food have a milder risk profile. The FDA (https://glp-1.health/blog/glp1-obesity-eligibility-bmi-chart...) recommends "GLP-1 weight loss medications (Wegovy, Zepbound) if your BMI is 30 or higher, or if your BMI is 27 or higher with at least one weight-related health condition such as high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, or sleep apnea". This is because there are side effects such that GLP-1 meds have not been shown to produce a net positive benefit-to-risk ratio for people who are only mildly overweight.

Re: Study links GLP-1 drugs to bigger jump in women's employment than a degree

#88
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This research already exists though. Obesity and being overweight increases the risk of sleep apnea, strokes, heart disease, diabetes, mental health problems, etc. etc

Causality is an issue there, I would suggest that genetic auto immune issues that are rather wide spread can cause all of the above. I think people are finding that GLP-1s help with auto immune issues.

I can speak only for myself. But when I was overweight, the heels of my feet would crack into such deep fissures that I could remove skin like thick pieces of jerky.

I lost 90 pounds and now the heels of my feet are as soft and supple as a baby's bottom.

Being overweight causes all sorts of weird side effects.

Re: Study links GLP-1 drugs to bigger jump in women's employment than a degree

#89
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mild counterpoint: a friend of mine, a professional woman, started on GLP-1 drugs some time ago. She has lost weight, but she also says she's had significant cognitive improvements, more focus, better sleep, etc. It would be great to have research which explicitly teases out these various effects.

I really wish these weren’t forever drugs. I would be next in line.

Bariatric surgery has most of the same upsides as GLP-1s and is a one-time cost. But I agree with the other commenters that "forever drug" is mostly fretting without an actual reason. The Hunger that engineered foods are deliberately designed to induce is a forever thing too, now there's a counterweapon.

Re: Study links GLP-1 drugs to bigger jump in women's employment than a degree

#90
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mild counterpoint: a friend of mine, a professional woman, started on GLP-1 drugs some time ago. She has lost weight, but she also says she's had significant cognitive improvements, more focus, better sleep, etc. It would be great to have research which explicitly teases out these various effects.

I really wish these weren’t forever drugs. I would be next in line.

Interesting. Part of the reason I was eager to use retatrutide was the reversibility. Fantastic drug and entirely reversible. I self-tested and the effects I had on it were reversed entirely in its absence. Similar to caffeine or amphetamine at the doses I have tried (which are not high), removing the intervention resulted in a return to a prior state over a fairly short period. I'd say that, in general, some of the good properties essential to an intervention for a non-debilitating condition are:

* uniform dose-response: easy to increase effect by changing dose

* reversibility: automatic reversion to pre-intervention in a short-term is gold standard - allows for regret escape

* low-cost

GLP-1 drugs have these properties which I like. I'm surprised to hear that someone would prefer the alternative, but I must imagine that cost and the dosing structure (sub-q injection is annoying) must dominate decision making here.

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