Are GLP-1s Driving a Steady Decline in Obesity Rates?
Very often, news reports about obesity rates have more puffery than substance to offer. However, a report this week from Gallup deserves your attention. It tells us that a steady decline in self-reported obesity rates appears to be a genuine trend and that an association with use of GLP-1s may explain it.
In fact, for three consecutive years since 2022, Gallup has recorded small, but steady drops in obesity rates. These numbers come from their National Health and Wellbeing Index and a survey question they have been consistently tracking since 2008.
What’s more, they have seen the greatest declines in obesity prevalence in age segments where the use of GLP-1s for weight management has grown fastest. Dan Witters and Mary Page James explain in their report for Gallup:
“The biggest reduction in obesity is found among those aged 40 to 49 and those aged 50 to 64, which are also the age groups with the greatest current rates of usage of GLP-1 injectables for weight loss purposes and the greatest increases in use of those injectables since the first quarter of 2024.”
A Continuing Rise in Diabetes
But unfortunately, their survey data offers no such indication of a decline in the prevalence of diabetes. From 2008 to 2025 the percentage of U.S. adults who report having this diagnosis has risen from 10.6 to 13.8%.
Caveats of Course
These survey data come with caveats, of course. It is clear that there are real issues with the reliability of self-reports on height and weight. People think of themselves as taller and slimmer than they really are. This bias slips into the numbers they report. And the misreporting can vary in ways that are uneven over time. Also, the correlation between rising use of GLP-1s and declining obesity rates not prove that these medicines are the cause of the drop.
Still, the steady trend downward seems meaningful. We are more cautious about attributing this to GLP-1s in this early stage of their adoption. And many issues remain with access to these medicines in populations that need them most.
Nonetheless, it would be nice to see the downward trend continue.
Click here for the reporting from Gallup, here, here, and here for further perspective.
A Drop of Egg White, photograph by Gribkov, licensed under CC BY 4.0
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October 30, 2025
October 30, 2025 at 7:56 am, Lee Kaplan said:
This interpretation of the data can only be true if we view obesity as different from a chronic disease. That is what this survey appears to have done since it is based on reports of height and weight. Chronic diseases are not typically cured by treatment; they are managed and when management is successful, they are controlled. Someone with well-controlled hypertension still carries a diagnosis of hypertension. This is also true of diabetes, which likely explains the lack of a reported decrease in prevalence of diabetes despite GLP-1 use. To decrease the prevalence of a chronic disease that is recognized as such, you would likely have to prevent that disease in large numbers, and widespread use of drugs with GLP-1 receptor agonist activity for obesity prevention does not appear to have occurred at present except perhaps in small, select populations. It is great to see the drop in BMI based on self-reported heights and weights, but this is not the same as a decreased prevalence of the disease of obesity.
October 30, 2025 at 2:50 pm, Ted said:
Excellent perspective. Thank you, Lee.
As I indicated, we really don’t know what this observations means or what is causing it.