{"id":420868,"date":"2026-04-05T03:06:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T03:06:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/420868\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T03:06:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T03:06:13","slug":"humans-are-fatter-than-ever-before-glp-1s-can-bridge-the-gap-between-evolution-and-modernity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/420868\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Humans are fatter than ever before \u2014 GLP-1s can bridge the gap between evolution and modernity\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\u2018Humans Susan A. Jebb OBE, Chair of the UK\u2019s Food Standards Agency, is Professor, Diet and Population Health, Oxford University. Speaking to Srijana Mitra Das at Times Evoke, Jebb explains weight \u2014 and well-being:Are we humans fatter now than ever before in planetary history?\u25a0 On average, we are definitely fatter than we\u2019ve ever been. There has been a steady increase in the average weight of nations around the planet. This is a consequence of enormous changes in the world we live in. Humans evolved in an environment where food was scarce and you had to work very hard to get it \u2014 neither of those are true anymore for most people. Many around the world now have access to more food than they need \u2014 it\u2019s easily available, palatable and cheaper than it\u2019s been in a historical sense.Alongside, our lives have grown less and less physically active. With gadgets and modern work-lives, most people in highor middle-income countries spend fairly sedentary days. To be physically active, you have to go out and find opportunities. That has fundamentally changed our world \u2014 food is now plentiful while energy requirements are low.Hence, obesity is a perfectly normal response to what is quite an abnormal environment. Our evolution cannot keep pace with the rate of change in our environment. We were born with genes which encourage us to eat freely when food is available because it might become scarce later \u2014 those genes are not serving us well in a world of plenty. \"-\"<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

What do you think of the spread of GLP-1 medications, including among people who are overweight but not diabetic?\u25a0 These drugs are effective treatments for people who are very overweight. They mimic the effect of our natural \u2018I\u2019m full\u2019 hormones. They actually demonstrate how obesity is in part a biological phenomenon as when you boost the \u2018I\u2019m full\u2019 signals through these treat-ments, people spontaneously reduce their food intake and lose weight. However, as soon as you stop these drugs, your appetite surges back to its baseline levels. Then, people have to work very hard and exert high levels of conscious control to restrict their eating. For most people, that\u2019s quite tough \u2014 and they regain weight. These drugs must therefore be part of a holistic package of care \u2014 a healthy diet and physical activity remain absolutely crucial. \"Screenshot<\/p>\n

HOW THE TABLES TURNED: Once, humans struggled to obtain food which was often scarce \u2014 today, food is plentiful and cheap but our evolutionary track still leads many to overeat while leading sedentary lives, driving serious ailments and treatments like GLP-1s<\/p>\n

Should non-diabetic people even use these medicines to lose weight?\u25a0 These were developed first for diabetes but they have been extensively tested for treating obesity and they have specific licensing and approval for this. These drugs have been repurposed but that\u2019s not unusual. It\u2019s reassuring they\u2019ve been used for diabetes for some time and we haven\u2019t seen many worrying side effects.Yet, once people stop taking them, don\u2019t they face the same high blood pressure, greater cholesterol, etc., they had before using GLP-1s?\u25a0 We conducted a systematic review of the literature on what happens after you stop weight loss medications. We found that with GLP-1s, people would lose about 15 kgs \u2014 but, one year later, coming off the drugs, they regained about 10 kgs. It\u2019s also very dramatic since it\u2019s much faster weight regaining than seen after, say, traditional dieting.Hence, there are key lessons here. First, within healthcare systems, we must understand obesity is a chronic, relapsing condition and people need long-term treatment. Those buying these medications must understand it won\u2019t be like, \u2018I\u2019ll take this for a year and get cured\u2019. Obesity is a chronic relapsing condition and after stopping these treatments, people regain weight. Of course, any duration when you are less heavy has health benefits because metabolic harms are essentially a function of how overweight you are and how long you\u2019re carrying that excess weight. So, any time your weight is below where you\u2019d have been otherwise has long-term health gains \u2014 the longer you stay at a lower weight will always benefit you.As India grows economically, high-fat diets, accessed through ordering in, dining out and \u2018aspirational\u2019 packaged foods, are causing illnesses \u2014 what are your views?\u25a0 I\u2019m extremely concerned and worried for India. In the United Kingdom, poor diets are the leading cause of avoidable ill health \u2014 this is mostly from eating too much, consuming too many calories, saturated fat, sugar and salt. Each increases health issues, particularly cardiovascular, with cancer risks.The first thing I\u2019d say to India now is \u2014 look at the mistakes we made in the UK and avoid going down the same path. This involves action at several levels. First, we need a healthy food system where people can retain local foods and traditional ways of eating, which have been proven beneficial for health. We need regulations that support the maintenance of local food systems \u2014 and resist the worst excesses of big multinationals who sell products high in saturated fat, sugar and salt. In the UK, we\u2019re now trying to put the cat back in the bag \u2014 we\u2019ve placed some guardrails around industry. There\u2019s been some tightening on advertising unhealthy foods to children on television and online. We\u2019ve put restrictions on promotions offered in grocery stores. But we need to go much further because we are still seeing obesity rates rise in the UK.What can the obesity crisis learn from how smoking was reduced worldwide?\u25a0 Around 50 years ago, in the UK, more than half of adults were regular smokers \u2014 today, that\u2019s come down to 12%. Progress was made through three ways. First, we provided support to people who smoked to help them quit. Second, we limited the tobacco industry through restrictions on advertisements. Curbs were also set on places where people could smoke and the price of smoking was raised substantially through tax. Third, there was a shift in culture \u2014 it became \u2018uncool\u2019 to smoke. People found it socially much tougher to smoke because you just couldn\u2019t do so indoors and in many locations.Now, obesity has several treatments \u2014 but we have to offer people support. Losing weight on your own is very hard \u2014 losing it with support is far more successful. Second, we must put constraints on the unhelpful practices of the food industry. Unlike tobacco, we\u2019re not trying to put the food trade out of business \u2014 food is a source of health and joy but it must be the right kind. We need food that benefits people and the planet. We must stop businesses from making money on the back of unhealthy food. The third challenge is shaping social norms to value healthy diets with fresh, minimally processed foods.We humans are creatures of both mind and body \u2014 why can\u2019t we see the irony of a harmful food industry and a dramatic weight loss business growing together?\u25a0 Often, there is a disconnect between our rational, objective selves and the much more automatic act of eating. We eat so many times every day, we don\u2019t give it much thought. We just slip into default mode. If something\u2019s convenient, we eat it before we\u2019ve thought about the consequences. Each individual item feels small in relation to the rest of our diet. So, there\u2019s a gap between our best intentions \u2014 almost everybody wants to be healthy \u2014 and the incredible difficulty to enact that in reality. The environment we live in also makes bridging that gap hard. We are susceptible to making automatic decisions about food \u2014 and we live in a modernity where those decisions are often unhealthy ones. \"-\"<\/p>\n

NEW MENU: As diners learn of food value, more restaurants must highlight nutrition<\/p>\n

India will now produce lower-cost weight-loss medications, reaching more people \u2014 given this, will the global food industry improve its act or just do more of the same?\u25a0 I really hope this will be a wake-up call for the food industry. Perhaps GLPs are exactly the treatment the food industry itself needs \u2014 if a significant number of people take medications which reduce their appetite and limit food impulses, they will become much more selective about what they eat. The food industry will have to ensure products are carefully positioned for people who have become more weight-conscious. The industry could provide much more nutrient-dense foods, without excessive fat and sugar. Currently, the middle and lower end of market meals feature very large portions as it\u2019s become a value-for-money thing \u2014 but people don\u2019t need massive pizza slices that have 1,500 calories. We need to see portion sizes changing. We also need a shift in the global coffee culture which has grown over the last decade, where one cup comes loaded with cream, muffins and several hundred calories. All that should be replaced by much smaller portions of high-quality food. \"COFFEE<\/p>\n

COFFEE \u2014 OR TOFFEE? From a grown-up drink, coffee is now like dessert<\/p>\n

I think more people will start saying, \u2018I\u2019m controlling my weight but what else is food doing to my body?\u2019 They\u2019ll consider food\u2019s nutritional quality and not just count calories. We must ensure GLPs become a positive disruptive technology that can help people control their weight \u2014 and reform our food system.Views expressed are personal<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Susan A. Jebb OBE, Chair of the UK\u2019s Food Standards Agency, is Professor, Diet and Population Health, Oxford…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":420869,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[78],"tags":[18,188547,135,19,99908,17,188545,19302,188546],"class_list":["post-420868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-eire","tag-food-standards-agency","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ill","tag-ireland","tag-jebb","tag-oxford-university","tag-srijana-mitra-das"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116349893755278207","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=420868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420868\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/420869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}