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Weight Loss Drugs and the Food Industry

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zamphir79
zamphir79 Posts: 21 Member
in Debate Club
I suppose this could be less of a debate and more of a energetic discussion, but I didn't see the topic fitting neatly anywhere else. So here goes...

I follow the markets relatively closely, and in recent weeks there's been chatter than Ozempic and drugs like it could be having an effect on food producers, grocers, and more. Some companies like Walmart have said that customers on these drugs buy less food overall. (I don't know exactly how they know that, but whatever, I think the logic stands to reason.) You can read more at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/10/09/ozempic-weight-loss-drugs-impact/

Anyway, this got me to thinking: Isn't it a big problem and kind of fundamentally awful that out society's economic well-being depends a little bit on people caring not so much about their own well-being? We're a consumption-based world. How can we both consume less but prosper just as much? I don't have any answers myself.

Replies

  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 33,958 Member
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    I'm thinking it's a pretty "duh" moment to realize that people losing weight on a weight loss drug buy less food. Go Walmart, you've cracked the code.

    I mean...
  • snowflake954
    snowflake954 Posts: 8,399 Member
    edited October 2023
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    SafariGalNYC wrote: »
    The United States is one of the largest agricultural producers in the world. The US grows “quality” food. When I’m home in NY - I only eat quality food. Just because some don’t choose quality food doesn’t mean it’s not grown in the US.

    Below : Agriculture hubs in the US per USGS. Only second to India and in a area larger than the whole of Europe. This isn’t manufacturing it’s just food being grown.
    j0otpclsnsli.png

    @snowflake954 ==> I live part time in Italy and if I wanted to eat ultra processed or “low quality” I know where to find it. America is not a food desert. In fact ….. tons of it are exported to Italy yearly. The “quality” pasta in Italy is mostly - American wheat.

    Below: if you look at the exports to Italy regarding food - there are hundreds of thousands of metric tons of American food (over 1B$) being exported to Italy. Source - USDA
    I’d say our quality food sources are dating.

    v90nbits10jg.jpeg


    @snowflake954 what is your definition of low quality? While in the US- I eat quality fresh produce, seafood and meat everyday. The majority of it local. Each region of the 50 states has a different food crop being grown that is quality. It’s available and many farmers take great pride in growing it.

    @The_Lonely_Wolf - I’ve read that article you cited. It talks about ripples through the industry. I left feeling optimistic for public health. I feel optimistic about the economy because our society adapts. People are still going to be consumers.

    Re the WaPo article- chain restaurants, fast food and packaged food may take a hit but that other sectors highlighting fresh produce, fitness and health will see a boom. Adaptation.

    In a recent Bloomberg article - Walmart's CEO said customers taking Ozempic buy less food. (Walmart mined its own pharmacy and grocery data to pinpoint customer buying patterns, per Bloomberg.)
    But-
    The drug itself has boosted sales of other items at Walmart — folks on the drug "tend to spend more with us overall," another company exec said this summer. (Per Bloomberg)

    If folks are spending less on food quantities we see that they spend it on other items. Clothes, cosmetics, etc. The economy and food industry shifts. Historically markets adjust to societal trends.
    Remember when eggs became supposedly unhealthy? Tada - boxed egg whites. The list of invention to beat a bust is endless.

    Morgan Stanley has been tracking the trend and wrote a statistical analysis on it and how it may “dampen the food ecosystem” but could shift agriculture and health in beneficial ways. They also stressed that the market shifts to find ways to boom.

    Morgan Stanley’s Global Head of Sustainability Research said the shift could be an opportunity to invest in vertical farming, aquaculture, biodiversity and organic foods.

    Many articles are trying to wave the oh no the US economy could be hurt by people buying less food.. but every decade has seen a shift in eating habits and it adapts for a capitalist market.

    “The food, beverage and restaurant industries could see softer demand, particularly for unhealthier foods and high-fat, sweet and salty options,” says Morgan Stanley’s tobacco and packaged food analyst Pamela Kaufman.

    Companies will likely adapt to changes in consumer behavior through innovation and by reshaping their product portfolios. Brands already offering healthier options will be in the best position to respond to the change.

    So the crux of the market analysis (after Walmart CEO interview) was that ultra processed foods may see a reduction but weight loss management foods, fresh foods, and foods perceived as healthy will see a boost in sales. Also economically, retailers in fitness and clothing will see a boost. They specially mentioned telehealth getting a economic boost.

    And what do we know from being on MFP? How many people make repeat returns and regain the weight?

    Morgan Stanley data show the proportion of people subscribing to a weight-loss program fell from 29% to 20% once they began taking the drug.

    One of the best-known digital-based dieting players is moving into the drug space with the acquisition of a telehealth platform that lets members connect with doctors who can prescribe the medications.

    So- stock for McDonald’s May go down -/ but others are going to see a boost.

    Also - the U.S. farm and food products exported to the world last year totaled $177 billion. The majority of the world that US food is sold to is not currently trending Ozempic use and remain reliant on the crops to meet their countries needs.
    Source- US Agriculture and UN food bank.

    Article -Morgan Stanley “Downsizing Demand: Obesity Medications’ Impact on the Food Ecosystem” (Aug. 7, 2023)

    ☕️ Thanks reading my epistle - off to drink my quality Hawaiian grown coffee. 😉

    Sorry--I should have said SELL higher quality food. We're actually on the same page.

    Yes, the US is producing some high quality food---and there are markets overseas where there is a demand for this quality. I grew up on a farm in the US and still have strong ties there. I know very well what Americans are eating and I know very well what Italians are eating. There's a difference.

    My reply was that people eating less COULD be drawn to higher quality, where a store could see a shift in its profits and survive just fine. A big win, win overall.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,150 Member
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    The_Lonely_Wolf wrote: »
    (snip background for reply length)

    Anyway, this got me to thinking: Isn't it a big problem and kind of fundamentally awful that out society's economic well-being depends a little bit on people caring not so much about their own well-being? We're a consumption-based world. How can we both consume less but prosper just as much? I don't have any answers myself.

    I see two possible interpretations here, not sure which if either is your focus.

    1. Could we consume less but thrive more, a scenario that if generalized has potential negative implications for the overall economic structure? (This would be a variation on voluntary simplicity or minimalism, at population scale.)
    2. Can we consume in ways that improve our whole-life balanced well-being rather than damaging ourselves through short-term gratification that has long term negative consequences?

    Maybe I'm just cynical, but either interpretation, it seems would require remodeling human nature. That (and its equivalent at n=1, personality transplant) aren't very possible, IMO.

    It isn't IMO so much that people make choices that don't show care for their own well-being: It's that there are different types of well-being (pleasure, health, etc.), and different outcomes on different time-scales.

    Even in myself, doing things that create slightly less pleasure now, but higher odds of more positive future outcomes (even if bigger benefits) . . . that's a hard sell, TBH.

    IOW, in the moment, lots of things taste as good as thin feels - if we compare equal duration of each. On top of that, the taste is delightful now, and the good-feeling thin future is abstract and theoretical. If we valued the long-term (and viscerally felt the cumulative effect of small choices), the outcome might be different.

    What these drugs seem to be doing is making people feel less pleasure in overeating food (calories) in the moment, with the result that bodyweight and perhaps therefore health improve. Might that lead to that visceral sense of improvement that can cement managing intake in other ways long term? Dunno.

    I'm not sure how to manipulate any of that, at the population level. In a general sense, there's research suggesting that surprisingly small nudges can lead to people making different (more future-oriented) choices. (See Nudge by Thaler and Sunstein.) That kind of nudging in the societal dietary realm seems difficult.

    I do think food companies will compete to sell us whatever we vote with our dollars that we want to buy, and now (on average) that seems to be high volume food, high sugar/salt/fat. If we change our tastes, they'll change their offerings, but it takes a lot to turn that battleship.

    The GLP-1 drugs are still pretty new. There'll be more interventions coming on the medical front, too, I'm guessing. Given some of the war and weather stuff happening now, global food shortage may be coming, too. I hope not. But it would change consumption habits.

  • sollyn23l2
    sollyn23l2 Posts: 1,612 Member
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    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    The_Lonely_Wolf wrote: »
    (snip background for reply length)

    Anyway, this got me to thinking: Isn't it a big problem and kind of fundamentally awful that out society's economic well-being depends a little bit on people caring not so much about their own well-being? We're a consumption-based world. How can we both consume less but prosper just as much? I don't have any answers myself.

    I see two possible interpretations here, not sure which if either is your focus.

    1. Could we consume less but thrive more, a scenario that if generalized has potential negative implications for the overall economic structure? (This would be a variation on voluntary simplicity or minimalism, at population scale.)
    2. Can we consume in ways that improve our whole-life balanced well-being rather than damaging ourselves through short-term gratification that has long term negative consequences?

    Maybe I'm just cynical, but either interpretation, it seems would require remodeling human nature. That (and its equivalent at n=1, personality transplant) aren't very possible, IMO.

    It isn't IMO so much that people make choices that don't show care for their own well-being: It's that there are different types of well-being (pleasure, health, etc.), and different outcomes on different time-scales.

    Even in myself, doing things that create slightly less pleasure now, but higher odds of more positive future outcomes (even if bigger benefits) . . . that's a hard sell, TBH.

    IOW, in the moment, lots of things taste as good as thin feels - if we compare equal duration of each. On top of that, the taste is delightful now, and the good-feeling thin future is abstract and theoretical. If we valued the long-term (and viscerally felt the cumulative effect of small choices), the outcome might be different.

    What these drugs seem to be doing is making people feel less pleasure in overeating food (calories) in the moment, with the result that bodyweight and perhaps therefore health improve. Might that lead to that visceral sense of improvement that can cement managing intake in other ways long term? Dunno.

    I'm not sure how to manipulate any of that, at the population level. In a general sense, there's research suggesting that surprisingly small nudges can lead to people making different (more future-oriented) choices. (See Nudge by Thaler and Sunstein.) That kind of nudging in the societal dietary realm seems difficult.

    I do think food companies will compete to sell us whatever we vote with our dollars that we want to buy, and now (on average) that seems to be high volume food, high sugar/salt/fat. If we change our tastes, they'll change their offerings, but it takes a lot to turn that battleship.

    The GLP-1 drugs are still pretty new. There'll be more interventions coming on the medical front, too, I'm guessing. Given some of the war and weather stuff happening now, global food shortage may be coming, too. I hope not. But it would change consumption habits.

    True... not to mention being thin often doesn't feel much different from being overweight (morbid obesity of course being a different issue that can cause more health problems). I think this may be part of the reason people regain weight... there's not really a noticeable difference in how they "feel", they thought losing weight would make them feel blissfully wonderful.... but then it just ends up being kind of... eh.. and they lose motivation to bother with maintaining it.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,150 Member
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    sollyn23l2 wrote: »
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    The_Lonely_Wolf wrote: »
    (snip background for reply length)

    Anyway, this got me to thinking: Isn't it a big problem and kind of fundamentally awful that out society's economic well-being depends a little bit on people caring not so much about their own well-being? We're a consumption-based world. How can we both consume less but prosper just as much? I don't have any answers myself.

    I see two possible interpretations here, not sure which if either is your focus.

    1. Could we consume less but thrive more, a scenario that if generalized has potential negative implications for the overall economic structure? (This would be a variation on voluntary simplicity or minimalism, at population scale.)
    2. Can we consume in ways that improve our whole-life balanced well-being rather than damaging ourselves through short-term gratification that has long term negative consequences?

    Maybe I'm just cynical, but either interpretation, it seems would require remodeling human nature. That (and its equivalent at n=1, personality transplant) aren't very possible, IMO.

    It isn't IMO so much that people make choices that don't show care for their own well-being: It's that there are different types of well-being (pleasure, health, etc.), and different outcomes on different time-scales.

    Even in myself, doing things that create slightly less pleasure now, but higher odds of more positive future outcomes (even if bigger benefits) . . . that's a hard sell, TBH.

    IOW, in the moment, lots of things taste as good as thin feels - if we compare equal duration of each. On top of that, the taste is delightful now, and the good-feeling thin future is abstract and theoretical. If we valued the long-term (and viscerally felt the cumulative effect of small choices), the outcome might be different.

    What these drugs seem to be doing is making people feel less pleasure in overeating food (calories) in the moment, with the result that bodyweight and perhaps therefore health improve. Might that lead to that visceral sense of improvement that can cement managing intake in other ways long term? Dunno.

    I'm not sure how to manipulate any of that, at the population level. In a general sense, there's research suggesting that surprisingly small nudges can lead to people making different (more future-oriented) choices. (See Nudge by Thaler and Sunstein.) That kind of nudging in the societal dietary realm seems difficult.

    I do think food companies will compete to sell us whatever we vote with our dollars that we want to buy, and now (on average) that seems to be high volume food, high sugar/salt/fat. If we change our tastes, they'll change their offerings, but it takes a lot to turn that battleship.

    The GLP-1 drugs are still pretty new. There'll be more interventions coming on the medical front, too, I'm guessing. Given some of the war and weather stuff happening now, global food shortage may be coming, too. I hope not. But it would change consumption habits.

    True... not to mention being thin often doesn't feel much different from being overweight (morbid obesity of course being a different issue that can cause more health problems). I think this may be part of the reason people regain weight... there's not really a noticeable difference in how they "feel", they thought losing weight would make them feel blissfully wonderful.... but then it just ends up being kind of... eh.. and they lose motivation to bother with maintaining it.

    Plus loss is gradual, and some of the benefits accrue gradually. Some may not even land until some time into maintenance. The pluses aren't a lightning bolt that hits suddenly and
    dramatically. Then regain tends to be pretty slow, insidious - with some of the problems it brings delayed-onset as well. On both sides of that, it sneaks up on a person: The boiling frog analogy, basically.

    I know I feel dramatically better at a healthy weight than I did when obese, but I think I'd notice less of it outside an athletic context (i.e., it may matter that I was athletic while still obese, and I can perceive objective differences there). Sometimes people who initiate exercise alongside weight loss let it slip out of their habits as they regain, so may put a spotlight on benefits of healthy weight distinct from fitness benefits. (The slipping away of fitness can be insidiously gradual, too, of course.)

    The health marker improvements are objective, of course . . . but also gradual in coming, and in creeping away.
  • Corina1143
    Corina1143 Posts: 2,922 Member
    edited October 2023
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    "I think this may be part of the reason people regain weight... there's not really a noticeable difference in how they "feel", they thought losing weight would make them feel blissfully wonderful.... but then it just ends up being kind of... eh.. and they lose motivation to bother with maintaining it."

    Please, say it ain't so!

  • sollyn23l2
    sollyn23l2 Posts: 1,612 Member
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    Corina1143 wrote: »
    "I think this may be part of the reason people regain weight... there's not really a noticeable difference in how they "feel", they thought losing weight would make them feel blissfully wonderful.... but then it just ends up being kind of... eh.. and they lose motivation to bother with maintaining it."

    Please, say it ain't so!
    🤷‍♀️ Everone's different
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,150 Member
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    Corina1143 wrote: »
    "I think this may be part of the reason people regain weight... there's not really a noticeable difference in how they "feel", they thought losing weight would make them feel blissfully wonderful.... but then it just ends up being kind of... eh.. and they lose motivation to bother with maintaining it."

    Please, say it ain't so!

    OK, it ain't so. ;)

    Based on reading some posts here, some people are thinking that life and their own psyche will be magically better after weight loss, as if body weight were the root of all problems. That ain't so.

    I agree with "blissfully wonderful" is improbable - too high an expectation.

    Nevertheless, being at a healthy weight is not "eh" to me. But I wasn't expecting it to solve all my life problems.

    Feeling more spry, being able to do more things, having less physical pain, feeling the small ineffable improvement in sense of well-being that I suspect may have some relationship to reduced systemic inflammation, having the improved health markers (so no need to start some scary drugs) . . . that's plenty of reward for me, and I'm sure I'm forgetting some stuff.

    I'm the same human, but in a substantially more comfortable and accommodating body.

    It's easy for a person to get used to that, accept it as a new normal (not as "blissfully wonderful", even if it was close to that at first). Under those circumstances, it's easy to turn attention to other parts of life, and have weight creep back up (and well-being creep down) almost unnoticed. (How many posts have I seen here where people report suddenly realizing they're up 20 pounds or more?)
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 27,898 Member
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    Re: "The drug itself has boosted sales of other items at Walmart — folks on the drug "tend to spend more with us overall," another company exec said this summer."

    Sure, if you're going in to Walmart for a prescription, it makes sense to pick up other things while you're there. I bought a pan at Target when I was there for something only they carry, and I bought another size pan at Walmart when I was there for a few things for which they have the best price.

    It's why store include pharmacies - in the hopes of pharmacy customers doing their other shopping while they pick up their prescription.

    New Ozempic customers = new Walmart customers.
  • mmatcha_latte
    mmatcha_latte Posts: 117 Member
    edited November 2023
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    Corina1143 wrote: »
    "I think this may be part of the reason people regain weight... there's not really a noticeable difference in how they "feel", they thought losing weight would make them feel blissfully wonderful.... but then it just ends up being kind of... eh.. and they lose motivation to bother with maintaining it."

    Please, say it ain't so!

    Everyone has different motivations for losing weight so you're going to get a ton of different perspectives from people's experiences.

    One of my motivations for losing is to wear some specific clothing brands that don't make plus size clothing. That goal can only be attained by losing weight so I would say that I do feel blissfully wonderful when I achieve it - not necessarily because the weight is gone, but because losing the weight and becoming smaller allowed me to fit into these clothes. I feel motivated to keep the weight off because that's the only way I'll get to keep wearing these clothes.

    The same logic could be applied to infinite other motivations that are not solely scale-focused - like wanting to fit on rides at Disney, wanting to alleviate pain, wanting to improve other health tests, etc.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,874 Member
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    The_Lonely_Wolf wrote: »
    I suppose this could be less of a debate and more of a energetic discussion, but I didn't see the topic fitting neatly anywhere else. So here goes...

    I follow the markets relatively closely, and in recent weeks there's been chatter than Ozempic and drugs like it could be having an effect on food producers, grocers, and more. Some companies like Walmart have said that customers on these drugs buy less food overall. (I don't know exactly how they know that, but whatever, I think the logic stands to reason.) You can read more at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/10/09/ozempic-weight-loss-drugs-impact/

    Anyway, this got me to thinking: Isn't it a big problem and kind of fundamentally awful that out society's economic well-being depends a little bit on people caring not so much about their own well-being? We're a consumption-based world. How can we both consume less but prosper just as much? I don't have any answers myself.

    Generally, consumption just shifts to another market sector, it doesn't cease. Fairly recently I substantially decreased my alcohol consumption...like by a lot. Initially I had some extra cash in my pockets and floating around in my bank account, but ultimately my consumption habits just shifted elsewhere.

    Someone trying to be healthier for example may shift there food consumption from a lot of processed foods to more whole foods and/or they may also shift consumption to fitness products, gym memberships, supplements, etc. The fitness industry is a multi-billion dollar industry for a reason. Very rarely do people stop consuming some good or service and not have that consumption diverted elsewhere.

    The bigger issue IMO...and perhaps this is getting a bit too much into the weeds...but at what point does our system collapse on itself? At what point can the average person no longer afford wants and typical "disposable" consumption because everything is going towards basic needs. I don't think we're quite there yet, but it seems like that is on the horizon and a bit scarier than some people not buying Oreos because of a medication they're taking.

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