The future of weight loss is very similar to the past
Therefore, it is not surprising that some people who have undergone bariatric surgery experience recurrence of a pre-existing eating disorder or the development of a new one. Vomiting frequently, never knowing what foods can cause indigestion, and feeling pressured to maintain post-op weight — “that way you can create an eating disorder,” Du Bril says.
But semaglutide and tirzepatide promise to fulfill an even stranger fantasy: eliminate appetite itself. While a drug like Munjaro works on many fronts, including preventing body fat accumulation and browning existing adipose tissue, the feeling of being free from desire seems to fascinate patients and doctors alike. People affected by the drug often say, “I forget to eat,” says Fatima Cody Stanford, an obesity specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital’s Weight Center.
If doctors truly believe that obesity is the greater of two evils, then this approach makes sense. When it comes to bariatric surgery, for example, a review of the medical literature suggests that, in general, it is associated with a reduction mortality from all causesor death from any cause*—*compared to high BMI patients who do not go under the knife (although such studies are severely limited as they often do not take into account social factors such as income or education). Many hope that semaglutide and tirzepatide will someday prove as vital.
But eating disorders also kill. In many contexts, constant hunger is considered a parody. And desire – food or something else – is a great way to know that you are alive. “It’s crazy to me that we don’t see lack of appetite as a positive thing,” says Shira Rosenbluth, an eating disorder specialist who works with people of all sizes. Anna Tunk agrees: “I realized that are worse things than being fat,” she said. said cut Last failure. “The worst thing you can be is constantly wanting to puke.”
Ultimately, the proliferation of medicines like Munjaro means that medicine is not just about defining “normal” weight (which not quite figured it out yet), but “normal” appetites. What was once an intuitive process where your body tells you what it needs has become the dictate of diet culture: you tell your body what to eat. Now medicine is promising a radical reset: With the right medication, your body won’t starve at all.
Weight Loss Technology You can’t stop it completely, and you shouldn’t. Everyone has the right to choose what he wants to do with his body. But informed consent is based on information, and that may not be enough. Munjaro was quickly tracked down by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) based on studies looking to observe weight loss in as little as 72 weeks, a fraction of the time real patients would take the drug. At the very least, patients should be informed that the first years after the introduction of the drug on the marketthey are part of an ongoing experiment.
As the biomedical war on obesity continues, people need to do more to fight the anti-fat bias—not technically, but as part of a broader vision of justice that obesity activists began to articulate more than 50 years ago. For semaglutide, tirzepatide, bariatric surgery and the like are neither miracles nor cures. There have always been fat people, and there always will be, regardless of whether they “do not respond” to treatment, refusers or languish on the waiting list. Notably, even those who have lost weight drastically after surgery or injections may still be overweight or obese, depending on where they started.
Perhaps most importantly, the American discourse on weight loss must move away from the reflective scientific approach that has allowed biomedicine to put all human experience to its purposeful test. Weight, like almost every aspect of incarnation, is not a purely biological phenomenon or a well-defined medical “problem” that needs to be addressed. It is shaped by countless factors, such as the distribution of power in society, personal psychology, and the most frightening of forces: the desire for more.
If you or a loved one is struggling with an eating disorder, the National Eating Disorders Association hotline is available at (800) 931-2237.