In a world of addictive foods, we need GLP-1s

We may be on the brink of reclaiming our health.

- David A. Kessler

Throughout my life, I've been fat, thin, and various sizes in between. Since I was a kid, I've gained and lost weight repeatedly, putting on 9kg, taking it off, putting on 13kg, and then losing it again. It has been a cycle of despair.

The fact that I'm a doctor, a former dean of two medical schools, and ran the Food and Drug Administration for 6 1/2 years was of no help to me. Like millions of others, I was caught between what the food industry has done to make the American diet unhealthy and addictive, and what my metabolism could accommodate.

We may now be on the brink of reclaiming our health. New and highly effective anti-obesity medications known as GLP-1s have revolutionized our understanding of weight loss and of obesity itself. These drugs alone are not a panacea for the obesity crisis that has engulfed the US, and we should not mistake them for one. But their effectiveness underscores the fact that being overweight or obese was never the result of a lack of willpower.

It is the result of biology instead, and that is why these drugs work. They help people feel full after eating and reduce the cravings that are central to our addiction to the irresistible, highly processed, highly palatable foods that have glutted our shelves over the last five decades. For many of us, our biology makes the pull of these ultra-formulated foods nearly impossible to resist.

These foods typically are called ultra-processed, but I refer to them as ultra-formulated because they have been engineered to manipulate the brain's reward system. These foods have become the new cigarette and, similarly, have resulted in a health catastrophe.