The thread covers the WHO's new stance allowing these drugs for obese youth from age ten amid rising global numbers, alongside practical worries about cost, ethics, and misuse. Users debate industry responsibility, personal childhood experiences with food noise, and whether the approach helps more than it harms development or enables poor parenting. Most see potential benefits but flag risks of overprescription and long-term unknowns.
What this discussion establishesWhether net benefits for most children outweigh risks of misuse by parents seeking thinness rather than health
Still openAppropriate long-term dosing schedules and safety profile for developing bodies
Nothing here is advice.
The WHO has now cleared these weight-loss shots for use in kids starting at age ten given the scale of the problem worldwide. I only came across the story in German though, so a translation tool will be needed.
The WHO has put out its first worldwide recommendations on childhood obesity while numbers keep climbing. Rates for ages five to nineteen have gone from two percent to about eight percent since 1990.
That total feels low at first but it covers only obesity rather than all overweight cases so it adds up better. Still, maybe one percent of those kids have families who could pay for the branded versions, so they won't be a practical fix until prices drop a lot. Handing out unregulated versions to children would be an ethical mess.
I agree many families simply lack the resources to feed their kids properly. Still I hold out hope that politics will eventually shift so the big players behind this problem have to pay for the fallout. Taxing the companies behind sugary drinks, fast food, and convenience stores the way tobacco gets taxed would be a start. After decades traveling and now living in Southeast Asia I have watched the change firsthand: places that once had almost no such chains and almost no overweight people now see kids fed processed items daily because it is fast and cheap. The city I am in now still looks like Thailand did thirty years ago with very few overweight people visible.
This looks open to misuse. Even though it is meant only for obesity cases I doubt it will stay limited in practice. I can picture normal-weight teens being given these shots to chase unrealistic thinness, which risks insufficient calories during growth years and affects development beyond just body image worries. I was an overweight kid myself and ended up with serious body-image problems that lasted. Whether weekly shots for weight would have been better or worse than repeated fad diets is hard to say. In the end it comes down to the doctor, parents, and child. If the data shows it is safe for growing bodies then my only remaining issue is ethical.
Interesting. I wonder what the dosing schedule would look like for kids.
That is a huge number of overweight kids whose parents are not doing a good job.
I am really torn. I keep thinking about parents pushing these shots on perfectly normal-weight daughters just because they think the girls are too big. I hope it stays very hard for families to get them, but the unregulated market makes that unlikely. It is sad that kids might need them, that parents might misuse them, and that they could replace actual nutrition and health guidance. It feels pretty heartbreaking overall.
This would have changed everything for me growing up. Constant thoughts about food have been a lifelong issue. My mother could have chosen better foods but she did cook and it was not all processed. Still, what do you do with a child whose mind is always demanding more to eat? My early years would have looked very different if this option had existed. The downside is that most cases will probably involve parents who keep giving processed food because it is convenient. Even so the kids would likely have a better quality of life and might even build a healthier relationship with eating. While misuse will happen in some families, the overall effect should still be strongly positive for the majority who receive it.
Start at 0.25 mg and increase to 0.5 mg after four weeks.
Thanks. So I am guessing the other one would start at 2.5 mg then?
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