Ozempic took center stage at the Golden Globes Sunday when host Nikki Glaser joked to the A-list Hollywood audience that the award ceremony was the weight loss drug's "biggest night."
Getting healthy and losing weight almost always come near the top of the list when pollsters ask about New Year's resolutions, and now an array of drugs and gadgets are available to help. The statistics are grim. Today, the CDC classifies 70% of the U.S. population as overweight. Data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination study show that between 2021-2023, 40% of Americans were obese, with 9.7% designated as severely obese. Sixty-nine percent in a 2024 YouGov poll agreed that there was an epidemic of obesity in the US.
Polls provide a useful window into understanding how Americans view their own weight, how the country's perceptions have changed over time, and how they are responding to the availability of drugs being used for weight loss such as Ozempic.
Gallup, in partnership with West Health, reports that 55% would like to lose weight, 11% gain weight, and a third are content to maintain their current weight. Forty-three percent considered themselves overweight. In a February 2024 Pew survey with slightly different wording, 12% considered themselves very overweight, and 44% slightly so. In Gallup's survey, 27% said they are seriously trying to lose weight.
Gallup has tracked the public's desire to shed pounds over many decades. From 1951-1957, maintaining current weight was the public's goal. Since 1996, however, when the organization picked up the question again and began asking it regularly, losing weight has been main response.
The Roper Center at Cornell also offers an invaluable primer on changing attitudes. In the 1950s, according to Roper's 2014 report, only around 5% recognized that being overweight could lead to heart disease. By 2009, 92% did. The Roper report notes that the public was slow to recognize other health risks of being overweight. The percentage of respondents mentioning obesity as a health risk "stayed in the single digits until 2004." But a "massive public health campaign" about the connection changed things. "In 2013, the proportion of the public citing obesity as one of the most urgent health problems had risen since to 39%, outranking even cancer."
Greater public awareness has spawned a new industry. In the new Gallup survey, 24% of Americans, up from 19% five years ago, are wearing "a fitness tracker such as a smartwatch or smart ring" and 26% are tracking their health statistics "using an app on your smartphone or tablet," also up from 19% in 2019.
And what about the new weight loss drugs? The Kaiser Family Foundation reported in its spring 2024 Health Tracking Poll that nearly six in ten Americans had heard a lot or a little about "about a class of drugs being used for weight loss, such as Ozempic, Wegovy, and Mounjaro," up from 43% in a similar question from 2023. Twelve percent indicated they have taken one of the drugs, and 6% are taking one of them now. Of those who had ever taken one, almost equal shares said they were taking the drug to treat a condition such as diabetes or heart disease (39%) as said they were taking it for weight loss (38%). Twenty-three percent said they were doing it for both.
In the YouGov survey, 33% thought obesity was a "complex chronic disease," while 40% described it as the result of a "lack of self-control." In the Pew poll, 34% said willpower alone is usually enough to lose weight and keep it off, but 65% said it was not. There were interesting demographic differences. Forty-one percent of men compared to 28% of women said will power alone was usually enough, and younger people were more likely to give this response than those over 50 years of age. Republicans and Democrats differed, too, with 40% of Republicans or those who leaned to the party saying it was usually enough compared to 28% of Democrats.
In a related question, of those who had heard of the new drugs, 53% said they were a good option for people with a health-related condition, but only 12% gave that response for people who wanted to lose weight but did not have the condition. In both cases, around a quarter said they weren't sure.
The public health campaign has paid dividends, but it isn't clear how much Americans think the new drugs will advance it. Just 16% of those familiar with the new drugs in Pew's poll expected them to do a great deal or quite a lot to reduce obesity.