Weight-loss drugs are no match for the might of big food
TO GET A sense of why periodic panics about the impact of weight-loss programmes on the food industry should be taken with a pinch of salt, sugar, butter and whatever else you fancy putting in your mixing bowl, go back 20 years to 2003. That was the year when Robert Atkins, the eponymous father of a popular diet, slipped on a sheet of ice in New York and died. The weight-loss drugs“>low-carb king was at the peak of his powers. One of his books, “Diet Revolution”, briefly outsold even “Harry Potter”. His message, not of abstinence but of indulgence in the finer things of life such as steak, bacon, eggs and cream, spread joy through the livestock pits of Chicago, and alarm through bakeries and confectioneries. Wheat prices fell. Unilever, an Anglo-Dutch food giant, blamed the Atkins diet for shrinking sales. Yet by late 2003 the craze had gone the way of its founder, snuffed out by a blend of boredom, bad breath and bad publicity. As one newspaper summed it up: “Atkins is toast.”
Every decade brings something new to avoid. In the 1970s it was calories; in the 1980s, salt; in the 1990s, fat; in the 2000s, carbs; in the 2010s gluten and dairy. But this time is different, isn’t it? The latest killjoys threatening the food, beverage and restaurant industries are not another dietary fad, but injectable medicines, such as Wegovy, approved in 2021 as an anti-obesity drug, and Ozempic and Mounjaro, anti-diabetes drugs used off-label for weight loss. Besides stimulating insulin production, the so-called GLP-1 medicines reproduce a feeling of fullness and suppress appetite in a way that has a similar effect in the food and drink aisles as dietary restraint, except people are less likely to cheat.
Investors in Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly, which make the drugs, are delighted. Those in the soft-drinks and snacking businesses, less so. In recent weeks the share prices of Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, as well as of retailers like Walmart…
2023-10-12 09:04:45
Original from www.economist.com
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