The Ozempic effect is finally showing up in obesity data

For years, obesity rates in the US have gone in one direction: up. From the first year it was launched, Gallup’s National Health and Well-Being Index has found that the share of US adults reporting obesity has climbed and climbed, rising from 25.5 percent in 2008 to 39.9 percent in 2022. That survey caught the last leg of an epidemic that has been spreading for decades, with estimated obesity prevalence tripling over the past 60 years.

It’s not that the country hasn’t tried to fight weight gain. But from the $33 billion Americans spend each year on weight loss products and services to government efforts like first lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move campaign or Make America Healthy Again, little has worked. Many doctors and patients came to believe the rise in obesity may be all but biologic