Chris Whitty warns reliance on weight-loss drugs to tackle obesity would be a “societal failure”

England’s Chief Medical Officer, Chris Whitty, has warned that relying on weight-loss medications such as Wegovy and Mounjaro to address obesity would represent both a societal and medical failure.

Speaking at the annual lecture of the Medical Journalists' Association, Sir Chris said the new generation of weight-loss drugs are “transformational” for people who need them but should only be used by a “very small minority” of people.

He cautioned that allowing large numbers of people to develop obesity and then treating them with medication for life would be the “wrong answer” to one of the UK’s most pressing health challenges.

“If our response is to give up on public health and rely on drugs to get us out of a hole, I do not think that is a socially acceptable answer,” he said. “Actually, I don’t think that’s a medically acceptable answer either.”

Estimates suggest around 1.6 million people in the UK have tried weight-loss medications in the past year. Sir Chris said the widespread use of such drugs across the population would indicate that the UK had failed to address the underlying causes of obesity.

Around two-thirds of adults in the UK are currently overweight or living with obesity. Sir Chris highlighted that the situation has worsened significantly since the early 1990s. At that time, obesity levels in the UK and France were similar, but while rates in France have remained relatively stable over the past three decades, those in the UK have risen sharply.

He stressed that maintaining a healthy weight is important for reducing the risk of a range of conditions, including cancers, heart disease and type 2 diabetes.

Sir Chris also criticised the aggressive marketing of unhealthy food, particularly to children, warning that it contributes to lifelong health problems. He pointed to stark differences between the food environments in some UK towns and comparable locations in France. In parts of the UK, he said, residents are presented with “wall-to-wall junk food”, making healthier choices far more difficult.

“That is a societal choice and is one that I think we should be looking at really, very seriously,” he said.