‘A tax on being thin’: only high earners make overall savings on food bills from weight-loss drugs
Users need discretionary income of nearly £100,000 a year to make savings on their grocery spend after paying £1,200 for GLP-1s, analysis finds The high cost of weight-loss medication is a “regressive tax on being thin” because the outlay outweighs any saving on food costs for all but the highest earners. Someone needs to have discretionary income of nearly £100,000 a year to actually save money…
Weight-loss medication, known as GLP-1s, has been criticized as a "regressive tax on being thin" due to the high cost outweighing any savings on grocery bills for but the wealthiest individuals. According to an analysis by Baringa, only those with nearly £100,000 in discretionary income after covering the £1,200 annual cost can save money on groceries, while everyone else sees no reduction in food expenses.
Paddy Winters, a partner at Baringa, warned that the medication can become a driver of inequality, as most users purchase the drugs through private prescriptions. While a GLP-1 user with £39,000 remaining after taxes and essentials saves £481 a year on food, it is not until someone has £97,500 left after taxes that they save £1,200 on groceries.
The cost of the medication is an average for the pill form, and those with the drug may also spend more on vitamin supplements and personal care products to manage side effects, compounding the financial burden. The analysis highlights that 14.3 million adults in England are living with obesity, and while 5% of adults, or nearly 3 million people, in Britain are on weight-loss medication, only about 6% of current users have household incomes below £20,000, while 20% are from the wealthiest households earning above £100,000.
Experts warn that the high costs could lead to people discontinuing treatment and ultimately regaining weight, potentially exacerbating health inequalities caused by obesity due to affordability and access.
Written by urgent.news from Guardian Health's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
