News that children are to be offered weight loss drugs is proof that somthing has “gone wrong with the way we feed and care for our children”, a barrister has argued.
Drugs such as Ozempic have revolutionised the treatment of obesity for adults in recent years.
Now, the HSE believe they could soon be prescribed to young children as well, following positive results in six clinical trials of 756 children aged between six and 17.
Scientists concluded that children prescribed Wegovy and Ozempic lost almost on average 18kg of weight.
On The Claire Byrne Show, barrister Brenda Power described Irish society’s struggles with obesity as a problem of the 21st century, noting that she recently viewed archive footage of the heatwave summer of 1976.
“All the adults, all the children were uniformly slim and fit looking - you'd have to contrast that with an image from any public place today,” she said.
“I suppose what really struck me then was a report in the weekend newspapers to the effect that the HSE is about to start offering weight loss injections to children as young as 12.”
Ms Power argued that society should instead focus on asking “what has gone wrong with the way we feed and care for our children”.
“A four-year-old who is fat enough to need weight loss jabs and some of these kids in the UK weigh the same as 10 year olds,” she said.
“They're not going to the shop and buying that themselves; somebody is putting that in front of them.
“Maybe it's education - but something needs to get that message home.
“You're killing your kids with this stuff.”
Also on the programme, HSE Obesity Lead Professor Donal O’Shea agreed that it is “very sad” that society has to discuss how to talk about medical interventions to help obese children.
However, he continued that public health solutions are “complicated”.
“When you have obesity, you should not be told, eat less, move more as the treatment - it's important,” he said.
“But the treatment is surgery and drugs, and those drugs should be available in groups that they've been studied and shown to be safe in.
“That is, thankfully, if sadly, from the age of 12 and up.”
Professional O’Shea continued that healthcare requires a measure of ‘balance’ between lifestyle changes and medical intervention.
“The new upcoming obesity policy and action plan is going to focus on nutrition, activity and treatment - it's going to have those three pillars, which I think is positive,” he said.
“I think we have to call out the food environment as much as we can; the Big Mac, the double Big Mac meal is 1,400 kilocalories in one setting.
“That's almost your entire daily allowance.”
Main image: The Ozempic weight loss drug. Picture by: Alamy.com.
