Obesity drugs do work, but don’t make good TV

IN ITS 17 years as the country’s top diet and fitness TV show, Operation Transformation has tweaked its formula in response to a variety of backlashes. Fat-shaming, permitting holier than-thou experts make a name for themselves by upbraiding contestants for their presumed character defects – I’m looking at you Drs Ciara Kelly and Eva Orsmond – or having contestants exhibit every inch of their blubber either in skintight Lycra or underwear have been banished.

Their place has been taken by a more holistic approach that gently encourages leaders to bare both their soul and their flesh, in pursuit of their dream selves.

But there is one adjustment the show is unwilling to make to keep pace with the changing times.

Its refusal to discuss weight loss drugs such as Ozempic, which are revolutionising obesity treatment in this part of the world, has caused the departure of the show’s veteran dietitian, Aoife Hearne, and raised questions about the show’s bona fides.

‘Telling people who meet the clinical criteria for obesity to eat less and move more is not just outdated, it’s unethical,’ says Ms Hearne, a lecturer in nutrition and exercise science. ‘You have to follow the science’.

THE show’s producers may have valid reasons for avoiding talk of weight-loss drugs. They may not want to endorse the latest Big Pharma money-spinner which, since its hijacking by celebrities for weight loss, is in short supply for diabetes sufferers.

In a recent interview for this newspaper, OT host Kathryn Thomas said she had seen a marked rise in applicants admitting they have tried Ozempic to lose weight. She says the ‘jury is still out’ until more research is done on its efficacy.

You don’t have to be a cynic to acknowledge, however, that the main reason for OT’s reluctance to include weight-loss drugs may not be quite so well-intentioned.

First and foremost, Operation Transformation is an entertainment show with manufactured drama and suspense that comes from seeing people huffing and puffing down footpaths until it looks as if they are about to collapse, toppling into their furniture while doing pathetic lunges and squats at home, and grimly weighing every morsel of food.

The final piece – the test to see if all that willpower has paid off on the scales – completes an engaging narrative arc that could never be matched by a surefire medical treatment like Ozempic that requires no physical effort before it painlessly burns away the pounds.

Obesity is a complex and, it seems, ever-changing condition. Sufferers are no longer viewed as gluttons who deserve contempt but as victims of a serious medical syndrome which places them at increased risk of other health conditions like insomnia, cardiovascular problems and strokes.

IT IS one of the biggest health challenges facing the country, an enormous burden on the public purse. If there is a remedy to restore good health to such a large swathe of the population while saving the health service billions, then why not bring it on?

Ms Hearne says it’s unethical to force people to rely solely on calorie counting and exercise for weight loss when a medical remedy is available, but it is also cruel – like forcing women to give birth without an epidural, or to have a tooth filled without pain relief.

Doing things the hard way appeals mainly to those who believe suffering and selfdenial are good for the soul.

But obesity is a problem of the body, not the soul, and it’s time that punitive attitudes about its treatment join fat-shaming in the dustbin of social history.