Are we ready for the weight loss revolution?

Last week a press release dropped into my inbox promoting the launch of a new ice cream. Nothing remarkable in that, I receive dozens of these emails every day. What made me waver over clicking the delete button this time (sorry PRs) was the strapline: “High protein indulgence for the GLP-1 generation”.

The sales pitch for Oppo Pro ice cream – let’s give the marketers their due and give it a mention – went on to tick all the boxes for standard PR puffery; “perfect treat”, “super creamy” and “active health” all got an outing, but it was the explicit suggestion the ice cream is “GLP-1 friendly” that stopped me in my tracks and should prick the attention of anyone in the business of selling food and drink.

As I subsequently posted on social media, I’m not sure we fully appreciate quite how fundamentally weight loss drugs like Mountjaro and Wegovy will not also reshape people’s food consumption habits by regulating appetites but will also require a screeching pivot in the marketing strategies of food and drink brands.

In my post, I posited the idea that marketing that connects with people on an emotional level is dead in an era of weight loss medication and the future is in marketing products based purely on their functional benefits. This was an oversimplification of a complex issue designed to stir debate, however most respondents agreed with the broader point that the implications for marketing, as well as product development, of widespread GLP-1 usage are huge.

One noted how products that claim to meet people’s needs for indulgence risk looking tone deaf when a large cohort of consumers is eating purely for nutrition (a friend of mine who has been taking Mountjaro for several months and lost an astonishing amount of weight reports having no food cravings whatsoever). Another suggested making products attractive for GLP-1 users would boost demand for the drugs themselves, creating a kind of commercial doom loop. At the very least, we are surely looking at the emergence of an entirely new category of customer segmentation based on GLP-1 users versus non-users.

Food and drink brands, as well as those in the hospitality sector, may console themselves with the knowledge that UK usage of weight loss drugs is not currently widespread (there were around 500,000 estimated users at the beginning of 2025). Yet the easy availability of the drugs privately means usage is set to grow fast, with data from Mintel showing 25% of Brits would be interested in using injectable weight loss drugs, rising to 46% of under-35s.

The pace of adoption, and the speed at which the drugs work, are such that experts are predicting the UK may now have reached peak obesity. On the face of it that’s a good thing, especially for those living with a chronic, life-limiting condition.

But there are so many unknowns that still exist around weight loss drugs. What are the long term effects on people’s health? Will users become dependent on the drugs to keep weight off? What will it mean for what we eat in future? If food only equals sustenance to GLP-1 users then why eat anything unhealthy, but equally what’s the motivation for buying food produced with care that places a premium on qualities like provenance, seasonality, sustainability and taste? Are we looking at the ‘Huel-isation’ of dietary habits where food and drink is increasingly dispensed in the form of ‘nutritionally complete’ shakes and powders? 

Hospitality sector businesses tasked with catering for an ever-expanding demographic of functional eaters have every reason to be fearful of this kind of dystopian food future – as do we all. The essence of eating is an act of communion; food and drink is the glue that binds our social interactions with friends and family. We lose some of our sense of self when eating becomes a purely utilitarian task. 

We needn’t shed a tear for brands that are having to tear up the marketing playbook – exploitative marketing of ‘treat’ foods has done as much as anything to create the obesogenic environment we live in – but we should surely pause for breath before uncorking a genie that could change the way we think about food forever.

*A version of this article was first published by Footprint Media.